Tony Award Winners Write Original Song for New Children’s Book: ‘Harvey and the Lightning Herd’

For Immediate Release:
October 14, 2024

Contact:
Rachel Hershkovitz 202-483-7382

Available today, Harvey and the Lightning Herd is a new children’s book by Helga Tacreiter and PETA that tells the sweet story of Tacreiter’s friendship with a tiny calf named Harvey and how nursing him back to health—after a disastrous storm left him with a disability—led her to open an animal sanctuary. The book features enchanting illustrations by Denise V. Tremblay and a surprise on the back cover: a QR code that links to “Cow Wow”—an original song by Tony Award–winning composers Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison that’s chock-full of fun facts about cows that will get kiddos boppin’ to the beat for bovines.

Based on a true story, the book describes how Harvey was one of six calves who survived after lightning struck a tree on a farm where Tacreiter worked. She vowed to save all six calves and formed a special bond with Harvey. He became the inspiration for the faux-fur “cowches”—life-size plush likenesses of real cows—that she handcrafted and sold so she could buy an 80-acre farm, now the site of The Cow Sanctuary.

“Helga Tacreiter’s story shows how compassion, determination, and a little creativity can make a huge difference in someone’s life,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Harvey and the Lightning Herd and its accompanying song, ‘Cow Wow,’ are sure to delight young readers and perhaps inspire them to change the world, too.”

After working together at The Second City Toronto, Lambert and Morrison co-wrote the hit Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which they won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Original Score. That year, they composed “The Pigeon Song,” which was presented at the launch of Newkirk’s book 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals. Since then, they have written other songs to help animals, including their 2021 song “Rescue Dog,” which comically celebrated President Joe Biden’s dog Major.

Harvey and the Lightning Herd is available on Amazon and at the PETA Shop—the latter will sell a version with a plush cow toy. All profits from the book will go to The Cow Sanctuary.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.