By Munro Leaf
The gentlest possible way to tell a child it's okay to be exactly who they are.
All the other bulls want to fight in the bullring. Ferdinand wants to sit under his cork tree and smell the flowers. Then a bee changes everything — for about five minutes.
It's the easiest place on the whole trail to start, because even a four-year-old gets Ferdinand right away. Everybody wants him to be fierce and fight in the ring, and he just wants to sit under his tree and smell the flowers. That's the same idea your animal-lover will keep meeting all the way up the trail, and here it is in a picture book they can finish in one sitting. It came out back in 1936, and honestly it hasn't aged a bit.