A little package in the mail introduced us to the world of Hank the Cowdog. You see, we had never heard of Hank or his cohorts. We knew nothing of Drover, Slim, Sally May, High Loper, Little Alfred, Beulah, The Buzzards, Pete, The Coyotes, Plato, or Madame Moonshine.
Our adventure with Hank b
egan with the Tornado game. Munchkin immediately fell in love with the pieces that actually looked like the characters (Hank, Drover, Junior the Buzzard). We had a few issues with the spinner only falling on two numbers at first, but after playing it a few times, we didn’t have any problems.
Tornado reminds me of cross between Sorry and Trouble. Only this game has a cool twist, the tornado space. When you land on the tornado space, a second simple spin could move you forward or backward. I personally love that the game pieces are all contained within the gameboard for easy storage.
Tornado includes a cassette, but we were unable to listen to it due to no longer owning a cassette player. This game has become an instant favorite at our house. You can purchase The Hank Tornado game for $12.99 from Maverick Books.
We started our book adventure with Hank by reading The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse. As with most new books, I did a quick pre-read to make sure the book was suitable for Munchkin. It was easy to be quickly drawn into Hank’s world through his unique story telling style.
Hank tells us of his adventures at his West Texas ranch in true cowboy cowdog fashion. Thankfully, his language is much cleaner than any ranch hands I’ve ever heard. Just the same, some parents may find the name calling and slang offensive. I personally felt that it was fine for Munchkin, so I handed off the book to Munchkin to see what she thought…
Hank the CowDog Case of the One Eyed Killer Stud Horse is an adventure story about how Hank the cow dog fought Tuerto the killer stud horse. The story includes the following characters:
- Hank – a very protective and loyal dog
- Drover – another dog. He was not as smart as Hank, but he was funny and most of the time he followed orders from Hank.
- Pete – a very grouchy barn cat.
- Sally May – a very grouchy but caring lady.
- Alfred – Sally May’s son who was a very adventuress boy.
- Ashley – an 8 year old girl
- Amy – a 9 year old girl. Both Ashley and Amy loved to play beauty shop and dress up.
- Tuerto – a very mean and nasty horse who is always trying to run over or kill someone.
According to the book, this was written “to all the farm and ranch wives who put up with noisy kids, ornery husbands, and sorry dogs.” I think it’s great for girls (or boys).
I give it a 5 star rating. It was really funny.
This paperback book retails for $4.24. There are currently 54 books in this series. All books are also available in audio versions and read along versions. You can see a full book line-up with prices here.
We concluded our adventures with Hank through the Tales and Tunes from Hank the Cowdog cd. The cd has story excerpts from 10 books plus 9 original songs. The cd retails for $3.00.
To learn more about Hank and his cohorts, head on over to the Hank the Cowdog website. You can explore the ranch, learn more about the characters, and play games online.
