How could anyone who grew up in the 50s (or earlier) fail to list Ferdinand the Bull as a favorite book? Everyone loved Ferdinand. The tale of a peace-loving bull who loves smelling the flowers more than fighting in the bullring, The Story of Ferdinand was a popular book for many years and was made into an animated short by Disney. You can see it here.  (Warning – it doesn’t capture the look of the book.)

The story was by Munro Leaf and the illustrations by Robert Lawson. Lawson will definitely be coming up again in my list of favorites. I remember Leaf for something besides Ferdinand. (By the way, as a young reader, I thought Munro Leaf was a thrilling name!) He wrote a children’s feature in the Ladies’ Home Journal about the watchbird. It became part of our family lexicon – I can still hear my mother saying “This is a watchbird watching you.” The watchbird phrase stayed in our family so long, it still comes to mind when I see a child misbehaving. Reading Mother’s McCall’s and Ladies’ Home Journal was a big  part of my childhood. I especially loved the paper doll, Betsy McCall, from McCall’s – I thought Betsy and I were so much alike. Or maybe I just wanted to be like her. After all, our names were similar and we both had dark hair. Another book Betsy figured prominently in my reading life – I will get to her in a bit.

Back to Ferdinand – aren’t Lawson’s pen and ink drawings gorgeous? And how he skewers the bullfighters and bandoleros! Still, for today’s generation, I’m thinking Ferdinand may not sit so well. Parents wouldn’t want to have to explain bullfighting to children, whereas we were raised knowing it was a part of Spanish and Mexican culture.  During my childhood, books about different cultures were very popular (see the previous post). And pre-globalization, the changes between cultures were much greater.

Still, the story of a peace-loving bull who bucks the system and frustrates the status quo of bullfighting delighted me. Hey, I’m a Taurus! Last weekend, my husband casually mentioned loving Ferdinand when he was a child. It’s a common bond I didn’t know about.