Book Nook - There Once Was a Cowgirl

Big Tex is back, and so is the great Texas question: how much fair food can one person eat? In There Once Was a Cowgirl (TCU Press), author and illustrator Susan K. Holt answers it one bite at a time.

A Texas twist on the classic “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” the picture book follows a cowgirl who cannot resist the fairgrounds. It starts with a funnel cake. Then come apple cider, a corny dog “as big as a log,” hot chili chips, a buttered biscuit, pecan pie and a Big Red float, each rhyme stacking on the last until the whole menu comes back up in one giant, bandana-print BURP. Holt’s cut-paper and fabric collage fills every page with midway booths and Ferris wheels.

The book began in Holt’s own classroom. Her students were putting new twists on familiar stories when a boy asked what hers would be. She didn’t have to think: the Texas State Fair and her favorite fair foods. The back of the book includes a kid-friendly funnel cake recipe, made with an adult’s help.

The State Fair of Texas runs September 25 through October 18 at Fair Park in Dallas and draws more than two million visitors. It gives free admission to pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students in participating school districts and has handed out more than 14.2 million free student and teacher tickets since 2018. This book’s readers are already headed to the gate.

For teachers, it is a field-trip warm-up and a writing lesson in one. Students predict the next food, chant the repeating lines, then write their own twist on a familiar story, as Holt’s class did.

For librarians, it is a story time that works this month and every fair and rodeo season after. Holt is a former librarian and a popular presenter at schools and conferences. 

For parents, it is the one fair treat that will not melt, drip or disappear before you get to the car.

About the author: Susan Kralovansky Holt is the award-winning author of nineteen picture books, including There Was a Tall Texan Who Swallowed a Flea and The Book That Jake Borrowed, whose bilingual edition won an International Latino Book Award. A former librarian, she lives in Georgetown, Texas.

About TCU Press: Founded in 1947, TCU Press is the publishing house of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, publishing books about Texas and the American West.