Some children’s books are classics. Take Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand (Robert Lawson, illustrator). Originally published in 1936 by Viking, Ferdinand tells the story of a gentle, little bull who doesn’t want to butt and stick his horns around. Ferdinand wants to “sit just quietly under the cork tree and smell the flowers.”
But when Ferdinand sits on a bee and gets stung, Ferdinand gets picked to fight in the bullfight in Madrid. Will Ferdinand fight?
Ferdinand is a charmer–from his hulking adult body rippling with muscles to his scared little face peeking around the doorway of the bull ring to his beatific bovine body plopped down in the center of the bullring completely content to just sit and smell the flowers from all the lovely ladies. (The picture of the lovely ladies with flowers in their hair was always my favorite when I was a girl.)
It’s interesting to consider that this book was written when Hitler was butting and sticking his horns around plenty. At the time of its publication, The Story of Ferdinand was banned in Spain and burned as propoganda by Nazi Germany.
But the world would be a better place if people were more like Ferdinand and his mother. Ferdinand doesn’t fall for the peer pressure of the other little bulls. His mother perfectly understands when to gently pressure and when to back off and let her child make his own decision. Face it, sometimes animals are much better people than people. Just ask Charlotte and Wilbur.
Ok, I have to admit I don’t really like pink–unless it’s hot pink. I even refused to let my baby girls wear pink–unless grandma gave it to them. Call it my feminist protest, and yes, I know the whole pastel pink/hot pink disctinction is totally irrational. I’d also like to add that I’ve mellowed (some) over the years.
Another book for kids who love trains. 
Move over Beatrix Potter because 
In an ideal world, we’d all have hours to sit on the couch reading books to our children. In an ideal world, we’d also have children who are always cheerful and obedient and never have problems with sleeping through the night, toilet-training, wrecking the car, or getting a full-ride scholarship to college either. But since we don’t live in an ideal world (it sounds a bit Orwellian anyway), here’s a website I just discovered. It might be a good option for those times you can’t–or don’t want (perhaps because you are engrossed in a novel of your own?!?)–to sit and read with your kiddos.
So now that Barak Obama has been elected president, I bet your kids are asking you, “So, what does the President do all day?” (besides talk on TV, of course) Ok, maybe not. But if your kids were to ask you, what would you say?
First, let me hasten to say that this book isn’t just for babies. However, 
There is something magical about a child learning to read.
Ok, just can’t resist doing a few more Christmas books.
little tree
Silent Night, Holy Night:
The Miracle of the First Poinsettia: A Mexican Christmas Story
B is for Bethlehem: A Christmas Alphabet
