Gordon the Goat
Munro Leaf
J. B Lippincott Company (1944)
Mirette and I were at a birthday party. The birthday girl wanted a piece of cake with a pink flower, the other girl also wanted a pink flower. I waited for Mirette to also ask for a pink flower, but much to my amazement she said that she wanted a green flower. The other two girls decided that they too wanted a green flower. I was elated! Was my child a leader?
On the other hand, we were at the beach recently and Mirette started telling these older boys what to do. "Hey guys, come over here to the beach," she demanded. One of the boys wouldn't budge. He said, "No, I won't do that." Mirette looked shocked that he wouldn't bend to her will. I worry about my only child being too bossy.
A mentor of mine turned me onto this great book which teaches kids the virtue of being a leader. It's written in 1944, so it's a little preachy and blunt in it's message (no subtle metaphors here!), but it's still a great little tale.
Gordon has great intuition not to follow the lead goat, but does so anyway. He gets swept up in a tornado and lands hard onto the ground, coming to the conclusion that from now on he will do his own thinking. Hooray! The pen and ink illustrations are simple, almost looking like a quick sketch, but lovely.
Interestingly, there is another book that Mirette and I took out from the library called Gordon In Charge by Jill Newton. It basically was a reversed version of Munro Leaf's book about a goat who is really bossy and learns how to be part of the group.
Munro Leaf's list of books sound so old-fashioned. He wrote: Being an American Can be Fun, Manners can be Fun, Reading can be Fun, How to Behave and Why, Grammar Can be Fun, as well as the famous The Story of Ferdinand.
Munro Leaf (1905-1976) was educated at Harvard and worked with Mr. Geisel creating pamphlets on malaria prevention for the war. Here's his website though it's not exactly filled with interesting information: http://www.munroleaf.com/. Enjoy!
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