“Petunia” is the first book created by Roger Duvoisin from the “Petunia” series. In this adventure, Petunia mistakenly thinks that she is a wise animal when she stumbles upon a book lying on the ground and she how tries to give the other animals uncanny advice about their problems. “Petunia” is an excellent book about the importance of true wisdom that young children will enjoy for many years.
SUMMARY
One day, Petunia was picking at some dewdrops on some goldenrod leaves when she spots a red book lying on the ground. When Petunia starts inspecting the book, she remembers Mr. Pumpkin telling his son that whoever owns a book and loves it is a wise person. Petunia decides to carry the book with her everywhere she goes and the more she carried the book, the prouder she grew.
It was not long before all the other animals in the farm start thinking that Petunia was wise because she carried the book and they started going to her to ask about their problems. One day, Clover the cow and King the rooster were debating about how King’s comb was red. King proclaims that his comb is the color of his blood while Clover argued that King’s comb was painted with red barn paint. Petunia then comes along and tells the both of them that Mr. Pumpkin, the farmer, stuck on a plastic comb on King so that he can tell him apart from the hens that lay eggs. King was so afraid that his comb might fall off that he did not dare to shake it around again.
Petunia on the other hand, had other things to do and later on, she meets up with Ida the hen. Ida had a problem with counting out her chicks and Petunia starts counting her chicks for her. But, unfortunately, Petunia could not count very well and told Ida she had six chicks even though Ida actually has nine chicks and also told Ida that she has too many chicks which cause Ida to worry more.
Petunia’s next victim is Noisy the dog and he gets his nose stuck in a rabbit hole and in order to help, Petunia decides to smoke Noisy out of the hole by making a large fire near the hole. Noisy is freed after this but his ears were cut and bruised and his nose was burned. After that incident, Petunia walks around the farm and notices that Straw the horse had a terrible toothache. Petunia then tells Straw that because she does not have any teeth, she does not suffer a toothache, so she decides to pull all of Straw’s teeth out, which frightens Straw and he runs away from Petunia. So, Straw suffered with his toothache in secret.
The next animal that needed help was Cotton the kitten, who got stuck on top of a tree branch. Petunia then tells all the animals to climb on top of each other to reach Cotton, but all of the animals fell on top of each other along with Cotton, who narrowly makes it out of the tree. All the animals, including Cotton, were bruised in the process.
Despite all the trouble that she has caused, Petunia becomes prouder by the second that her neck grew out more. One day, all the animals spotted a mysterious box out in the meadow and they all asked Petunia what was inside the box. Petunia tells the other animals that the box contained candy and when all the other animals ripped open the box, they received an unpleasant surprise…
What was really inside the box and has Petunia learned what true wisdom is really all about? Read the rest of the book to find out!
PROS
Roger Duvoisin has done an excellent job with both the illustrations and the writing for this story. Roger Duvoisin’s illustrations are highly creative as he makes some of the pages in the book colored while other pages are in black and white. Also, I love the way the animals look in this book as they are drawn in a simplistic way since they are drawn in a sort of scratchy way. Roger Duvoisin’s writing is hilarious and dramatic at the same time as he details the story of how Petunia tries to help all the farm animals, but ends up making all the other animals miserable as they go through painful trials from Petunia’s advice. I love the way that Roger Duvoisin uses the concept of true knowledge by letting the readers know that true knowledge comes from reading the book, not carrying it around with you just to make people think that you are smart.
CONS
Parents should know that there is a great deal of violence in this book as Petunia tries to help her friends, but ends up injuring them afterwards. One scene of violence that is probably the most graphic would have to be where Noisy the dog’s nose is stuck in the rabbit hole and Petunia smokes him out but ends up injuring his ears and nose. Parents might want to explain to their children that they should not play with fire, for it might hurt someone and themselves and also explain to their children that they should always examine the situation first hand before they do the deed.
OVERALL
“Petunia” is a great story for children who want to learn about what true knowledge is all about and also a great tale about how it is important to not jump to conclusions without knowing the full story first. I would recommend this book to children ages six and up since some of the violent scenes might be too much for smaller children to handle.
First introduced in 1950, Petunia continues to be a favorite with young children. In this first of the series of books about the silly goose, Petunia ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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