Perfect Pairing – heads to the Countryside

As the temperatures have been soaring throughout much of the US, I think it’s time to leave the city and head to the countryside!

Hey, Hey, Hay! A Tale of Bales and the Machines that Make Them

Author: Christy Mihaly

Illustrator: Joe Cepeda

Publisher/Date: Holiday House Publishing Inc./2018

Ages: 4-8

Themes: hay, farm life, girl power, seasons, rhyming

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Every bale of hay has a little bit of summer sun stored in the heart of it— learn from a mother-daughter team how hay is made! 

Feeding her horses one cold and wintry day, a girl thinks about all the hard work that went into the fresh-smelling bales she’s using. The rhyming text and brilliant full-page paintings follow the girl and her mother through the summer as they cut, spread, dry and bale in the fields.

Mower blades slice through the grass./A new row falls with every pass./Next we spread the grass to dry./The tedder makes those grasses fly!

This celebration of summer, farming, and family, illustrated by Pura Belpré honor artist Joe Cepeda, includes a glossary of haymaking words, and a recipe for making your own switchel— a traditional farm drink, to cool you down in the summer heat.

Read a review at Picture Books Help Kids Soar.

Mowing

Author: Jessie Haas

Illustrator: Jos. A. Smith

Publisher/Date: Greenwillow Books/1994

Ages: 4-8

Themes: hay, farm life, intergenerational, wildlife

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Nora helps her grandfather mow the field by watching for little animals in the tall grass and warning him to circle the horses and mowing machine around them.

Read a review at Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog.

I paired these books because both provide insight into farm life and an essential activity on many farms, and they both feature female main characters. Told from the first-person point-of-view, the recently-published Hey, Hey, Hay! provides information on the process of baling hay and the seasons on a farm, all in lyrical, rhyming text. The older Mowing focuses on one day when young Nora and her grandfather cut the hay, while making sure they don’t harm any of the local wildlife. Read together, I think they provide insight into life on a farm, something many of us have not experienced.