Petunia

With the conviction that "he who owns books and loves them is wise," Petunia the silly goose, upon finding a book, sets off on a mission to help all her friends on the farm with her new found wisdom.

"If I take this Book with me, and love it, I will be wise, too And no one will call me a silly goose ever again," she concludes.

A series of slapstick calamity ensues and somewhere in the midst of all the mishap is the moral that it is "not enough to carry wisdom under my wing. I must put it in my mind and in my heart."

Roger Duvoisin wrote many other children's books in addition to creating the Petunia series. Interestingly, he liked to intertwine characters from one story into another, thereby weaving a number of cameo appearances of Petunia in his Veronica books and vice versa.

While some of the Petunia tales are out of print, fortunately, this vintage classic is still in print! I picked up my copy from a used bookstore some years ago and it warmed my heart to see that it was also a Weekly Reader Children's Book Club edition. Although I didn't originally receive it as part of my subscription as a child, it is a glad addition to my book club books collection.

Petunia
words & pictures by Roger Duvoisin
© 1950 Alfred A. Knopf