"Don't sit on no bees."

Paul’s insight during story time is never boring. Last night I read the kids The Story of Ferdinand. It is one of their favorites and always keeps their interest. I don’t know if it’s the image of the big bull smelling flowers that keeps the girls interested but I know that the boys love when Ferdinand accidentally sits on a bee and bucks so wildly that he is chosen to go to the bullfights in Madrid.

The story has an amazing, if not controversial history. It is said to have been a favorite of Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was ordered burned by Hitler. Published only a few months before the start of the Spanish Civil War, it was interpreted as a pacifist response to the war. Ironically, the author, Munro Leaf, contended that he only wrote the story to allow the illustrator, Robert Lawson, an opportunity to showcase his work.

The reason why I bought the book is that I love a morality tale that reads like any great story. Ultimately, the book is about Ferdinand marching to beat of his own drum, choosing to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers while his peers only goal in life was to fight. After we read it, I asked Max and Natalie what they thought about the book, trying to figure out if they understood the meaning of the story. They had lots of ideas, none of them really getting the idea of individuality.

In the middle of this discussion, Paul walked in and I asked him what he thought, winking at him to talk about the moral of the story. Without skipping a beat he said, “Watch where you sit and don’t sit on no bees.”