Milk: From Cow to Carton

by Aliki

Read and find out about milk in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book. Beloved children's author Aliki takes readers on a guided tour that begins with grazing cows, proceeds through milking and a trip to the dairy, and ends with some different foods made from milk. This s a fun-filled and informative explanation of milk's trip from green grass, to cow, to a cool glass on the table. This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. Author/illustrator Aliki has penned four books listed as "exemplary" titles in the Common Core Standards and is a widely recognized name in nonfiction for children. This is a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are: Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs: Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Picture Books, Animals, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1974

About the author

Aliki has written and illustrated many books, both fiction and nonfiction, loved by readers throughout the world. The books were inspired by a word, an experience, or the desire to find out. Aliki lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Luisa Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this right before visiting a dairy farm! ( Watch the reel here!)

I really like this series for the younger crowd. Particularly the vintage editions - the illustrations are so much better, in detail and art style.

This title walks you through the entire process of how we get milk from cows and grass, with a lot of neat diagrams/pictures illustrating the process. The info is just enough to not be overwhelming, and also to stick with a 4 year old.

A win for early science!

Ages: 3 - 6

Content Considerations: nothing to note.

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[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illustrations are not Aliki's best, but the information is wonderful. Covers cows, milking, the industrial dairy, pasteurization and homogenization, the variety of dairy products, and how to make homemade butter and yogurt.

[Taylor Volker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aliki, known for informational books, shows cows grazing in a pasture. The book proceeds to cows growing through the milking stage. It has a dairy in the book as well. The book ends with foods being made from milk. This story is a great resource on teaching children how food goes from farm to table.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 1 out of 5]

I learned that neither myself nor Julia care too much about how milk finds its way to a carton.

[𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 ♡︎. · Rating 1 out of 5]

✭ 𝟏/𝟓

i hate milk.

(school book 🎓.)

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dishonest. No mention of the negatives. In humanity's distant past, when we first found that we could befriend certain animals and take some milk that was left over after its offspring had taken what it wanted, it seems the practice was fairly benign. It may even have helped our species survive.
Fast forward a few thousand years and this process has morphed into a highly mechanised and unnatural industry.

The modern dairy farmer is not prepared to wait until the animal naturally gets pregnant and gives birth in order to take the milk. No, he/she forcibly restrains the animal and shoves their hand and arm up its arse to hold the womb in place while sticking a rod containing semen (stolen from a bull who's been 'stimulated' to ejaculate) up to the womb.
Due to the shameless greed of the farmer and his/her customers, this happens not just once per animal but every year until it's completely worn out and of no more use. Typically five or six years.

This self serving, parasitic behaviour has spawned selective breeding whereby the animals chosen to breed are not the ones who are fit, strong and resistant to disease or to hereditary conditions (which would benefit the species). No, they're chosen to produce insanely large quantities of milk for the farmer to steal. Often ten times what nature would have provided, causing difficulty walking and necessitating long milking times.

This industry is so far removed from what kids are taught in their story books about how we get milk from cows. No wonder so many people remain clueless. I have heard adults say, 'We need milk' and 'Milk is necessary for strong bones'. Such is the power of indoctrination. There has never, in the history of human evolution, been a genetic change that has rendered this product necessary.

Although the sex of the embryo can be chosen, a huge number of male calves are born in Britain and elsewhere. Some go for veal, some go for beef. Some go for live export, which is the worst fate. An innocent baby bull dying of thirst, fearful til the kosher end just so you can have cheese.
This is what happens BECAUSE people eat cheese and other dairy products. No other reason.

The dairy farmers (beef too) are instrumental in the drive to kill badgers. Vaccination is not the answer. Dairy farmers would like you to believe they're doing wildlife a favour because pasture land creates and maintains habitats. It does but at the expense of the plants and animals that would have otherwise existed on that land. Nothing must get in the way of profits and yet the dairy industry is dying. Good riddance. Your time has come.

The modern dairy industry has created a monster which serves no other purpose than to exist in a state of almost constant biological servitude. It has purposely induced irreversible genetic abnormalities. Frankenstein was ashamed of the monster he created whereas the dairy industry seems to be proud of its achievements despite perverting the course of nature to a considerable degree.

[Anjana Murali · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book Milk from Cow to Carton, takes children on a fun adventure of learning how the cows produce their milk and how that milk goes onto your table. The story starts with the cows out on the pasture. The reader is told how they, the cows, spend the day eating grass and then being milked by the farmer. The milk then goes to the dairy and is processed before being transported to the stores and then bought by the consumer, such as the little girl who is telling the story.

The story is very informative for a child to learn a little knowledge about where the milk they drink comes from. The illustrations in this book look painted and could have easily been replaced by real photographs of actual cows, but this aspect creates a more fun and eye catching story for the children to enjoy. Another aspect that also makes the child enjoy it more, are the different styles of text used. The author uses speech bubbles coming from the characters, which gives it a comic book feel- and many kids find comic books to be fun! The sentence fluency of the book is short and structured and flows very well from page to page. This makes it very easy for the child to read it, as the sentences are not too long and are concise.

This book is great to read to a young elementary grade class. It is highly informational and has fun illustrations that the students will enjoy. I would give this book 4 stars, as although the illustrations and the knowledge the students gain from it are high, I feel that more could have been done with the text to grab the reader in more.

[Lindsey Wingfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review: I choose to give this book 2 stars because of how much text it has on each page. I think it would overwhelming for young children to read this book. Although the artistic elements are amazingly detailed and you can tell through each page what they are doing, it still has too much going on.

Summary: Showing what the cows eat in the spring and summer and what they eat in the winter. it explains how the cows give better milk. then it explains how a cow eats, and the way it grows through their four stomachs. They then describe what the milk is used for, and how much a cow is milked in a day. Next is where people get the milk out of from cows and where they ship it off to. Where it is shipped, they explain the process of how they might the milk safe to drink. Lastly, they share the different products that are made from a cows milk.

[Taylor Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: This informational book describes how and what cows eat and how they produce milk. It talks about how it is processed and what products from milk. This talks about the milks trip from grass, to cow to your glass on the table.

Characteristics: This is a great informational book about how cows produce milk.

Mentor Writing trait: this book good be a great way to teach the mentor writing trait of sentence fluency. This book has a lot of information, but the way that it is structured and well organized doesn’t confuse the reader. It has good transitions from one page to another.

Classroom integration: This would be a great book to introduce to a younger elementary grade class. This is a great informational book to read aloud and then you could either do a project or talk to the kids about what other animals are like cows and make food for us to eat. You could have the students draw pictures of chickens and how they lay eggs for us to eat.

Reading level: 3.3

[Prabhat sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milk from Cow to Carton by Aliki, Hindi language translation by Vidushak- Children’s Illustrated Colour Picture Book- The book narrates the story of how milk from cow is filled in cartons. This informational book describes how and what cows eat and how they produce milk. It talks about how it is processed and what products from milk. This talks about the milks trip from grass, to cow to your glass on the table. Coloured illustrations help the reader in relating to the story. I have read the Hindi language translation of this book.

[Jasmine Magee]

This is an informational book about how milk makes its way to the cartons on shelves at stores. This book explains how cows produce milk and the different foods that milk is used to make. This book can be used as an example on how to write about the process of making foods and how they make it on the shelves and to people's homes. Students can write about a process for putting food and other products on shelves.

[Willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. I had expected my daughter (3) to be bored, but she was not in the least. She wanted to read it over and over again and talked to us all about how the milk goes through all the tubes before it goes into the jug. She also likes to talk about what cows need to make milk whenever we pass cows while driving. I definitely enjoyed reading this book and thought the pictures were engaging and helpful. Definitely a great book for kids exploring dairy production.

[Lindsay Niebuhr · Rating 2 out of 5]

This informative story tells how the milk comes from the cow and how we get it in our homes. I would give the story two out of five stars because while it is informative it was not very exciting.

[Kary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting explanation of exactly how milk goes from the cow to the grocery shelves.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nonfiction picture book which deatils the step by step process of milk from a cow to a carton. v ery detailed by understadnable. kindergarten and up.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

ATOS 3.3

[Faith Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this book. As an uncultured Tarleton student it's cool seeing how cows milk works.

[LadyHague · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this! Kid friendly take about milk cows and how we get our dairy from cows. Colorful, informative, and entertaining for the kids. We read in conjunction with Kindergarten

[Jessica Starzyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not entertaining to read. It was just fact after fact. I gave to three stars because the information was correct and the diagrams were fun to look at. There really wasn’t much of a story.

Genre: informational
Grades: k-4

[Peacegal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Green Grass and White Milk is essentially the ‘70s, hippiefied version of the similar book The Milk Makers. Children cavort with friendly spotted cows in pastoral scenes throughout the doodle-like drawings.

Cows graze high in the mountains in the warm spring and summer. They graze in the valleys and in fields in meadows. They eat and eat in good green pastures.

The dairy industry had a slow start to industrialization, but in the new millennium the number of factory dairy farms grew by leaps and bounds. Today, a cow is more likely to live in a crowded drylot, and the scene above is rapidly becoming extinct.

A cow begins to give milk when she has a calf. The milk is food for the new-born calf. A cow has milk even when her calf no longer needs it. So the cow’s milk becomes food for us.

Oh, come on! While selective breeding has created a cow who produces far more milk than she normally would, this is just another example of the outright lying that occurs in so much juvenile farm animal nonfiction. In order to ensure that a cow produces the maximum amount of saleable milk, her calf is removed shortly after birth. Unless you’re running a Hare Krishna dairy or hobby farm, such is standard practice. The author is no doubt aware of this if she did any research on dairy farms for her book.

And, lastly, the inevitable “iron helps us play!” message:

Milk has proteins, vitamins, and minerals that give you energy and make you strong.

Note that the most prominent image on this page is a girl with an ice cream cone.

Green Grass and White Milk
by Aliki Brandenberg

[Courtney Lauren Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book MILK From Cow to Carton by Aliki is a great book for younger readers. It gives children some background knowledge on where the milk they drink comes from. Everyone knows milk comes from cows, but this book takes you to a different level of understanding. The book tells the story from the beginning starting with cows that are out to pasture. It tells how they spend their days eating grass and being milked by farmers. Then the story follows as the milk is sent to the dairy and processed. It then tells how it is transported to the grocery stores and bought by consumers like the young girl telling the story. The book includes very well explained diagrams of the cow and its stomachs as well as the processing of the milk.

This story was actually very entertaining to read even though it is all about milk. The illustrations look painted and are much nicer to look at instead of actual pictures of cows or dairies. Some pages of the book have a comic book style to the drawings and many have speech bubbles coming from the characters. I thought that this was a nice touch that makes the reading that much more fun for children. I think that overall this book was very well written and very beautifully illustrated.

[Alexa Rothman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was a good book for children to read because it went more into depth with where milk comes from. I wasn't going to get this book because I thought that it would be too simple for children to read but I was wrong. It started off with how cows are out on the farm just doing their daily routine, eating and getting milked by the farmers. It then explains how the milk is processed and where it is sent to. I thought as an adult that this was very interesting to read because of how much the book went into detail and in an interesting way. I liked the illustrations also because they were painted and even had a kind of comic book style to it. Overall I think this book was very well written and illustrated and I think that it would be a good read to a class of students, and also would be good to use as an introduction to a lesson.

[Erika Stauch]

This book hasn't won any awards. It is appropriate for 4-8 year olds. This book is about milk coming from the cow to a carton. It goes in depth about how milk comes from a cow in a kid friendly way. It's an easy read for young children. This book is great for children. It shows them how milk is transferred from the cow to the outside world. Luckily for the children who read this book, they are able to understand how and why milk comes from cows. I would use this in my classroom when learning about farm animals. This is a unit that most teachers do in the beginning of the year. I would have the children rattle off the many different farm animals that they know and tell me some facts about them.

[Cesar M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great informative book to be read to children or have them read. It talks about where milk comes from and the different steps it has to take to reach our home. Children will enjoy this text because of all the different places milk has to go through in order for it to be able to be sold and consumed. Many children at an early age aren't sure how milk gets made and this book is a great way for them to start learning about processes of production (machines, trucks, labs, etc.). Children can easily use this text to writ down what they already know about milk, where it comes from as well as why it is important for us to drink.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

From farm, to refrigerated tanks, to processing plant to our homes, Milk: From Cow to Carton tells the journey milk travels to get to our table. Kid friendly descriptions of the production and process of one of most familiar and healthy foods.

Used for "Got Milk?,Got Water?, Got Juice?" storytime-April, 2010.

[Sally Staples · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to read this book to my Kindergarten class. It talks about the sequence of how milk is made/produced. Before I read this book, I make a list of things we know about cows and after we read this book, we write or draw what we learned about cows. Some of the things they learned were about cud and that milk is transported from the farm to the dairy in a tanker truck.

[Sarah]

Publication Date: October 1, 1992

Annotation: Looks at the process involved in getting milk from cows to your fridge.

Themes: Science, Animals, Culture,Economics


Ways to Use: Student could create a cycle based on the steps invovled in milk production. This lesson could be used to help students understand where their food comes from.

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this little book is clearly told science information about cows, how milk gets from the cow into cartons that could be purchased in the store. Included are interesting facts about milk processing. Nicely illustrated.

[Kia M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could definitely be used in a writing lesson on descriptive text. This is also a very informational text that could be used in a social studies lesson on agriculture.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this a great book to tell kids a bit about where some of their food comes from in a way they'll understand. Teaches a lot but not in an overwhelming way.