Bright Surprise

The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss (Ages 2-8) 1949

As a 1950 Caldecott Honor Book, I definitely see why.

The illustrations of forest animals hibernating through the winter and waking in the spring are all done in black and white.

The animals wake and emerge from their winter dens, they sniff the air and all start running.  All of the them.  The bears, the squirrels, the ground hogs and even the snails, ah yep, snails too, run in this story.

All arriving at the same time, they all stop, like an arrow to a bulls-eye, to sniff the first, bright yellow flower of Spring!

Since everything is in black and white, when we got to the last page and saw the bright yellow flower, the looks and smiles on our three's faces, was...  well... priceless.

Happy Reading!