An imaginative mixed race boy from New York, Howie Kaplinsky dreams of being a cowboy, vividly fantasizing that New York City locations and situations are scenes and situations in the Wild West. With his "Cowboy Vision," Howie transforms dogs into coyotes, telephone poles into sequoias, a woman in a fur coat into a grizzly bear, the tall buildings of New York into the Grand Canyon, and Thanksgiving parade floats into an enormous, bizarre stampede. In Cowboy Howie. The Adventure of the Central Park Coyote and Thanksgiving Day Parade, Howie's father sees a report on the TV news about a coyote in Central Park. Howie gets on his BMX bike, imagining it's a pony, and sets off to "track the critter down." When the rope from a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade catches him by the belt, Howie flies high over Central Park until he finally comes to the famous statue of Balto, the sled dog. With his "Cowboy Vision" Howie is sure he's found the Central Park Coyote and lassoes it. In the end, Howie gets on a Central Park carriage and rides off into the sunset - "Just the way real cowboys always have. Just the way real cowboys always will."