Where's My Cow?
Where's My Cow? was a children's book by an unnamed author published in Ankh-Morpork.
In Thud!, the book is the favourite bed-time story of Young Sam Vimes. The chew-marks on the cover are an endorsement of its all-time-favourite status; Young Sam's father, Samuel Vimes, considered his son's copy "the most cuddled book in the world".
This night-time ritual of reading Where's My Cow? to his son every night at six o'clock helped keep Samuel Vimes straight, and reminded him that he is more than just a policeman. The ritual ingrained such a habit in him that he would do positively insane things to be home and up in the nursery at six o'clock, every evening, without fail. This becomes an integral plot-device of Thud!, though whether it feeds the power of the Summoning Dark or forms an insurmountable barrier against it (or possibly both) is hard to say.
The book has been in print long enough for a copy to reach The Chalk. At the end of Wintersmith, Rob Anybody demonstrates his new reading skills by reading from it. It is recent enough to have been reviewed favourably in the Ankh-Morpork Times by its renowned literary critic, Tuppence Swivel.
According to the Roundworld edition of the book, Where's My Cow? was originally published in the Year of Three Horses by Rouster & Sideways, 33b Gleam Street, Ankh-Morpork.