Why did you name your cow John? After all, John is a boy's name. Twelve-year-old Mike Elsasser lives on a farm in 1950s Nebraska. John is his favorite cow - she lets him go cow skiing with her in the mud. He constantly gets asked about her name, but he doesn't feel like explaining. "Just because," he tells them. Then one day, John gets lost?And even worse, Mike finds himself saddled with his younger cousin, Gaylyn, a girl who smiles all the time and doesn't know anything.

While John gets up to odd adventures, the two children have adventures of their own. They fight mosquitoes, make their own ice cream, find a secret passage and risk electrocution in irrigation trenches. They get involved in the trickery of fishing and the hunting of snipe. They learn horse tricks, escape an angry sheep, keep their silly uncle at bay, and even survive a tornado! A Cow Named John is a nostalgic and humorous story about children on a farm, their antics, and how work can feel like play - and how the search for John can be just as much fun as actually finding her.