Favorite childhood book

One of my childhood friends recently had a baby shower in August. In addition to a registry of gifts, she and her husband also requested that people send their favorite childhood stories for them to read to him once he makes an appearance. I didn’t have to spend time thinking about what to send - I knew immediately which book to add to their collection.

My favorite story as a child was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, which was released in 1936. Children’s books represent some of the best short stories. Despite having some entertainment value, they are heavily focused on the undertone and meaning they are attempting to convey. As adults, we can resonate with the story and memories it evokes, reflecting on the theme as it fits into our lives; as children, we are learning the lesson for the first time. According to Ellen Spitz, American writer and academic, the book crosses gender lines in that it offers a character to whom both boys and girls can relate; this makes it a great baby shower gift.

The Story of Ferdinand centers around a bull, living in Spain, who would rather sit and smell the aroma of surrounding flowers than fight as a championship bull in the famous bullfights. He spends his time on the farm sitting under a cork tree and smelling the flowers; when he is brought into town to fight, instead of taking heed of the matadors’ provocations, he simply sits in the middle of the ring and smells the flowers in the ladies’ hair wafting from the stands.

I enjoyed the book as a child because it gave me feelings of joy and peace. It also aligned with my parents’ teachings that I could be anyone I wanted to be and that I didn’t have to let other people tell me who I was as a person - “be true to oneself” so to speak. As an adult, I still love the book. In fact, in 1938, two years after the book was published, Life Magazine called Ferdinand, “the greatest juvenile classic since Winne the Pooh” and suggested that, “three out of four grownups but the book largely for their own pleasure and amusement.” The same year, it even outsold Gone with the Wind to become a number one best seller in the United States.

Since I enjoy the book, I look it up from time to time, and despite being marketed as a children’s book, it has a rich history steeped in the issues of adults. The book has been cited on multiple occasions as a political allegory. Even though the book takes place in Spain, it was banned in Spain until 1975 for this reason. The book was released less than two months following the start of the Spanish Civil War, and many supporters of Francisco Franco, who rose to power during the war, saw the story as a pacifist book. The ban on the book was not lifted until Franco’s death.