Story of Ferdinand

Story of Ferdinand

by Munro Leaf, Robert Lawson (Illustrator)
Publisher: Puffin Books
Mass market paperback, 68 pages
Price: $7.99

The delightful story of Ferdinand—the bull who loved to sit and smell the flowers. Enjoy this gentle animal's adventure as he is picked over all the other bulls, and taken to the bull fights in Madrid. Wonderful pen and ink drawings!

The Story of Ferdinand is Munro Leaf's most famous work (1936), a children's classic which he wrote for his friend (illustrator Robert Lawson) on a yellow legal-length pad in less than an hour. Labeled as subversive, it stirred an international controversy. The story, which follows a gentle bull in rural Spain who prefers smelling flowers to bullfighting, sparked considerable controversy because Ferdinand was regarded by some as a pacifist symbol. Banned in Spain and burned as propaganda in Nazi Germany, the book had over 60 foreign translations and has never gone out of print. The story was adapted into a Walt Disney film which won a 1938 Academy Award.

A Disney retelling

Did you find this review helpful?

Exodus Rating:
Summary: Gentle Ferdinand just likes to sit and smell the flowers, but is picked to go to the bull fights in Madrid.

Related Categories
Recommended for...
Customer Reviews
Write a Review Click here to write a review
  The Bull That Loved to Smell Flowers
Anna (age 7) of Oregon, 6/10/2016
I love Ferdinand because he always smells flowers and doesn't act bad and butt with his horns. He doesn't make the other bulls sad by butting them. The other bulls don't seem to mind the butting, but Ferdinand still prefers to just smell flowers. His mother gets worried about him being all alone, but he tells her not to worry because the flowers are with him. One day, when people come to find a bull for a fight, Ferdinand sits on a bee and gets stung. See what happens next! It is very, very funny!