#17 The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson (1936)
73 points
I remember liking this as a child, but I love it even more as a parent, when my children love to listen to it. It’s a gentle story, and can sometimes be calming at bedtime, but they also love to run around the house yelling “Wow! Did it hurt!” regarding the bumblebee scene. - Libby Gorman
What a beautiful message about being true to who you are! The simple sketches by Robert Lawson are fantastic. – Alexandra Eichel
Because, with a mix of humor and gravity, it sustains many very different interpretations. - Philip Nel
I was the Ferdinand in my family of birth. - Laura Gallardo
True story. I walk into the local Aveda to get my hair styled and the fellow they’ve given me is a chatty sort. Wants to talk to me about my job, librarianship, that sort of thing. And in the midst of our conversation I somehow steer it over to the Top 100 Picture Books poll and the books that did particularly well. He doesn’t remember the names of children’s books, but he brings up (of all things), “That story about the bull with the flowers.” “Ferdinand?”, I ask. “That’s the one!” That leads into a conversation of the book, the fact that his roommate has that bull tattooed onto his back (this is true), and the controversy surrounding it . . . but I get ahead of myself. In any case, clearly this book is on the minds of the non-children’s picture book reading public at large as well as the fans of the field.
Children’s Literature described the plot as, “Set in Spain, it is about a young bull named Ferdinand. All bulls in Spain aspire to one day fight in the ring with a matador. But not Ferdinand. All day long the young bulls play at fighting in hopes that one day they will be strong enough to be chosen for the bullfights. But Ferdinand prefers to quietly sit in the pasture and enjoy his surroundings. When the bulls all mature, they long to be selected for the bullring…all but Ferdinand. As the other bulls prance and preen, hoping to be selected, Ferdinand ignores the commotion. Suddenly, Ferdinand is stung by a bumblebee. He bellows and dances around like crazy. The matadors are so impressed with his machismo they select him as the strongest bull. He is praised all around for his power, until the day of the bullfight. Poor Ferdinand just sits there. The matadors prod and coax with no luck. Ferdinand is not interested in fighting. Ferdinand is returned to his pasture to live out his life in solitude.”
In any case, this is a lovely banned book to place on the list. Banned by whom? Oh, nobody much. Just a fellow by the name of Adolf Hitler. You see it was published during the Spanish civil war, Franco banned it in Spain, and then Hitler goes and calls it “degenerate democratic propaganda.” 100 Best Books for Children does say that it had its admirers as well, though. “Thomas Mann, H.G. Wells, Gandhi, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.” So, to sum up. Hitler hated it and Gandhi loved it. That’s a fine pedigree for this list, I should think.
In Tales for Little Rebels, there’s quite the lovely section dedicated to the book. “When the book was published in the fall of 1936, critics accused Ferdinand of being communist, pacifist, and fascist, and of satirizing communism, pacifism, and fascism. . . .
The Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature in Westport, CT celebrates its 10th anniversary October 21-23, 2010 with ‘double the fun.’
This year’s theme is Collaboration … the magical thing that happens when authors and/or artists work closely together to create books. Appearing in Westport schools (on Friday, Oct. 22) and speaking at a symposium for adults (on Saturday, Oct. 23) will be: Ted and Betsy Lewin, Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney, Jim and Kate McMullan, Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu, Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre, and Pegi Deitz Shea.
The festival’s opening event on Thursday evening, Oct. 21, features Emma Walton Hamilton, who will speak about her writing collaboration with her mother, Julie Andrews, and her own efforts to promote literacy. On Friday, while the authors speak in schools, festival goers can tour the nearby Weston Woods studios in the morning and hear Sharon McQueen in the afternoon talk about her extensive research into the history of the historic collaborative work between author Munro Leaf and illustrator Robert Lawson (for whom the festival is named).
For further information and registration information:
Because I have amotivational syndrome (that’s a fancy way of saying that I’m lazy), I‘m going to link here to Stacy Mozer’s nice notes about a fantastic event that I attended yesterday. (Thank you, Stacy.)
Bookspace.org - Glenn Peterson, Marilyn Turner (Hennepin County Library)
Marilyn
book site went live on valentine’s day
contributions from staff and readers have been key
hennepin county is a county of readers
- on average, every suburban HC resident checked out 17 books, DVDs, and CDs in 2006
- twice the national average
wanted to maximize this when redesigning their site
- wanted to bring together relevant resources for a particular genre or subject
- to allow librarians to easily contribute content without need any programming knowledge
when they came up with the name “bookspace,” it was conceived as a true space where people could read, share, and learn
domain name was owned by a young adult librarian in missouri who was never able to use it so she gave it to them to use
latest blog post title appears on the home page
email newsletter that goes out every other month
featured readers list
find a good book
who is working on the site?
- coordinator
- workgroup of 5 librarians
- contributors (30 librarians)
- 2 librarians on each genre page team
easy to use tools for the librarians, all form-based on the web
they help each other to show new blog authors how easy it is
these are not volunteer activities, which is important
- this is part of your job and part of your performance expectation
- it’s become an expectation over the last few years that their librarians will add content to the web
Glenn
social features
- user comments on books and other titles
- right now there are 234 comments on the final Harry Potter book; comments started on this title while it was still on order
- blogs, where users can also comment
- booklists
- list top contributors of comments
- “It’s Alive”
- user profiles
- more than just screen names
- bring together user’s comments and booklists on their profile page
- also show what they have checked out as a wall of books (”what they’re reading”)
looking ahead
- new ways to connect users
- users who are reading x are also reading y
- facebook “wall”
- show user’s “friends”
challenges
- control issues
geek stuff
- database-driven
- RSS everywhere
- ColdFusion (or ASP, PHP, etc.)
takeaways
- draw on library staff
- empower your users (they want to add content, especially your younger users)
- create opportunities for serendipity
- let users interact
slides at http://hclib.org/extranet/
John: The Social Catalog
the transformative library
based on “The Experience Economy” book -
services, goods = 1.0
transformation puts services, goods, and experience (participation) together into a whole = 2.0
the media ecology is changing rapidly
the way we conduct business means we need to change the way we do things
create an experience in the library itself to offer a transformative experience for the user
the social catalog is one way to do this
a vital interim step to wherever we end up going
3 social catalog environments
1. pseudo-social
- authority presented as collaborative (ie Encore); subject headings as tag cloud
- there’s no feedback loop, though, no real collaborative experience, and not really social
2. syndicated social
- 3rd party data (ie LibraryThing for Libraries)
- the results you get are generally well-formed and almost always outstrip the usefulness of subject headings
- but get a homogeneous blend of information from a particular record
3. individually social
- user-direct and self-contained (ie Hennepin, SOPAC)
- run into other limitations, such as critical mass of content
showed Michigan State University’s implementation of Encore
- tag cloud, AJAX
- not really a social system, though, even though interface elements are indicative of social sites
showed Danbury Library’s implementation of LibraryThing for Libraries
- tags, but still no real social elements
showed Ann Arbor’s SOPAC
- users taking advantage of the social elements are probably teens, probably a handful of them (so have to be careful your data analysis isn’t skewed)
you need to ask yourself…
- do we want non-authoritative (user-generated) metadata associated with a record display?
- only your institution can decide
- authoritative and non-authoritative information can co-exist
- if you include folksonomy, do you:
- want it to originate from syndicated data?
- reflect your community?
- if you don’t have the content, how do you provide the incentive to use the system? and if you don’t have incentive to use the system, how do you have the content?
- what kind of development is involved?
the network effect
question: how do you prime the pump for comments?
answer: glenn - thinks we’ll see a phased approach in popularity; needs to build, not there from day one; their statistics show that people are more interested in reading than contributing, but thinks that will change over time; Marilyn: Glenn has put the opportunity to comment in places she hadn’t thought of (where normally it would be an email); have done a lot of PR with prizes when they introduce these types of things; can put your name in to win after you comment
glenn peterson,
il2007,
john blyberg,
marilyn turner,
online communities,
public libraries
#17 The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson (1936)
Sorry to hijack, Betsy, but awhile back you linked to a blog that was doing a poll of the Top 100 YA books. I never got around to sending in my choices, and I lost the link in a computer crash. I’d love to know what ended up on the list. Can you provide the link again, please?
Thanks!
Hmm. Good question, Jennifer. I’m actually not sure. A couple folks have done Top 100 YA books polls. I bet if you Google it they’ll come up. But I can’t quite remember off the top of my head.
Practically Paradise, one of the SLJ blogs is still counting down the top 100 YA, she is down to #50 I believe.
Thanks for the plug for Rabbit Hill, Betsy! It’s the best little festival around and it’s a quick train ride out of NY, so I hope a lot of city folk can come.