Perfect Picture Book Fridays – Petunia

Hooray! It’s Fall and time for the weekly blog event Perfect Picture Book Fridays! Each week, author Susanna Hill hosts the event on her blog. To view more of the reviews of wonderful picture books, please go there! This week I am reviewing a fun classic, Petunia by Roger Duvoisin:

Title: Petunia

Author/Illustrator: Roger Duvoisin (1950 Alfred A. Knopf)

Suitable for ages: 4 and up

Themes: Affecting others, animals, cause and effect, confidence, reading

Opening/Synopsis:

In the meadow, early one morning, Petunia, the silly goose, went strolling.

She ate a bug here, clipped off a clover leaf there, and she picked at the dewdrops on the goldenrod leaves.

Then, suddenly, she saw something she had never seen before in the meadow, what was it?

This is the opening of a calamity of errors in which a farm goose finds a book and thinks that holding it will make her wiser. The farm animals start to believe it also and fall again and again for her words of “wisdom”.

Links to resources:

Coloring pages at 123coloring

Learning about the Goose on Animal Planet

Printable book about numbers and birds at Enchanted Learning

IlluStory- make your own story kit at Amazon

Teacher’s guide for Petunia (tv episode but can be used for book) at New Hampshire Public Television

Why I like this book:  I love stories that have a grander message. This one’s message is that just holding a book does not make someone wise, it is reading that counts. The author shows us time and again how the animals ask this silly goose for advice only to have something negative happen to them because of her unwise answer. This strong message about reading is a good rule of thumb for everyone, adults included. I loved the comedic value of the story also. The antics of the goose allowed for some fun illustrations that children will love.

Perfect Picture Book Fridays are a weekly blog event where participants review some of their favorite picture books. The posts are compiled on author Susanna Leonard Hill’s website. They are categorized by theme to help parents, educators and readers find the perfect picture book easily. To learn more, please visit Susanna’s site where you will find the complete PPBF’s library.