Bibliographic record
Abstract
ar-el, Dan. Audrey (cow), illustrated by Tatjana Mai-Wyss. Tundra Books, 2014.In an amazing series of first person accounts, Dan Bar-el details the escape of a Charolais cow, Audrey, from her apparent destiny: the abattoir. Both her ordeal and her survival involve a huge cast of characters, some loving, some nasty, some honorable, some mercenary, some clever, some daft. Those most instrumental in Audrey’s salvation include Eddie, her devoted dog friend; Buster, a brilliant but introverted pig; Boris an outcast but ingenious skunk; and Fay, a warm hearted but political wily animal rights activist. Those at best indifferent to her existence (and, at worst, complicit in plotting her death) include Kasey the cattle truck driver, and Claudette, the cougar. There are, however, countless others who detail their role in Audrey’s harrowing adventure. Each role, in its own way, is significant in the course of events. The brilliance of Bar-el’s storytelling is that he gives every character a unique and engaging voice; in fact, the tale just begs to be dramatized or animated. Tatjana Mai-Wyss’s black and white drawings appeal to the eye, mind and heart. Some provide a necessary explanation for the reader. In particular, the drawing of the latch mechanism (p. 71) that Audrey must unhook to flee from the truck makes plausible the cow’s escape.Most independent readers (grades three to six) could handle the text and would find the story both emotionally engaging and exciting. It is, in fact, so suspenseful (and Audrey’s possible plight so horrifying) that a sensitive child might need reassurance that the final outcome is a happy one. Reading the story aloud to younger children could prove a challenge; without the visual clue of the speakers’ names (entered as subheadings)little listeners could lose their way in the multiplicity of first person accounts. However, if you are a storyteller who excels at “doing voices,” this book is for you; hesitate not to share it with the very young. Finally, a trigger warning: this book could lead to youthful declarations of vegetarianism!Reviewer: Leslie AitkenHighly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Leslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship included selection of children’s literature for school, public, special, and academic libraries. She is a former Curriculum Librarian at the University of Alberta.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.431 | 0.242 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".