Cowboy Sam and those Confounded Secrets is a fictional story with repetitive sentences of a hometown hero who helps out this small town by keeping their secrets in this hat. Cowboy Sam goes into town everyday ready to listen and "Keep it under his hat", but one day this hat explodes and can not hold anymore secrets. The towns people try and help Sam out by giving him things to keep the hat on and keep their secrets, but nothing seems to work. At the end of the story Cowboy Sam and the towns people learn that Sam does not need a ha to keep all the secrets, but Sam has a big enough heart to keep them instead.
In my opinion, is story is expressing a real life small town feel through a children's story. The message behind this children's story is simple, secrets can be dangerous, you can not trust everyone and sometimes their can be too many secrets. It's not good to tell others secrets, but rather keep them in your heart.
The illustrations in this book go right along with the storyline. The dulled colors of the Texas prairie add just the right effect the author was going for.
This children's book would be a good book to read or discus with your students, but not one at the top of my list. It's a great book with a good lesson but their are many books with this such theme. ( )

This was a great tall tale, full of similes and metaphors and great exaggeration. The ending was a bit sappy, but the story was good all the same. ( )