You know that great feeling when you stumble on something great completely by accident? I have it today! We were at the library looking for books for school, which means I’m scribbling down reference numbers and chasing children’s books from all their misplaced places, when the title of this book caught my eye.
Being “Daddy’s Tractor” of course, we had to check this one out. And we’ll probably renew it too! Its a whimsical book with bright illustrations and a bit of nostalgia for the by-gone era of small family farms. Grandpa takes his grandson out to the old homestead, now fallen into decay. There they find a forgotten (red!) Farmall tractor growing up with weeds.
Please note that Farmall is a predecessor to Case IH. And if you don’t know what Case IH is, kindly refer to the photos in the blog title. And for all of you cheering for green and yellow, just allow me this moment. It is hard for all of us in ag to find truly good literature, but do you know how hard it is to find books with red tractors?!
But back to the actual point… Grandpa tells his grandson all about the work the tractor used to do on the farm when he was a boy, making this book a fantastic addition to our History of Agriculture Theme Unit.
The author/illustrator is not a farmer (or even remotely connected with ag in any way) and it was not written to be a scientifically, historically, or otherwise perfectly accurate portrait of farm life, but I thought Michael Garland did a nice job and avoided any of the usual mistakes of drawing all roosters instead of hens etc.. And the story of how this book came to be, featured on the last page, is probably my favorite part of all.
So now you can be as excited as I am :-).
Daddy's Tractor 