The Story of Ferdinand

The image I remember is not the bullfight. It is Ferdinand sitting under a cork tree, smelling flowers. He is enormous, gentle, and completely content. The other bulls are running and butting heads in the field, and Ferdinand is doing his own thing. His mother worries about him, but she sees that he is happy, and she lets him be. That small act of acceptance is the emotional center of the book, and it is why the story has lasted for almost ninety years.

Munro Leaf wrote The Story of Ferdinand in 1936, and Robert Lawson illustrated it. It was published by Viking Press and became one of the most famous picture books of the twentieth century. It is a simple story, told in simple language, with black-and-white drawings that are full of life. It is also a political book, whether or not Leaf intended it to be. The story of a bull who refuses to fight has been read as a pacifist fable, and it has been banned by governments that did not want their children to get the message.

The story

Ferdinand is a young bull in Spain. He lives in a pasture with other bulls, and he does not like to run or butt heads. He likes to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers. His mother, a cow with a kind face, asks him why he does not play with the others. He tells her he is happy. She understands. She sits down next to him, and they smell the flowers together.

As Ferdinand grows, he becomes the biggest and strongest bull in the pasture. The other bulls dream of being chosen for the bullfights in Madrid. They practice charging and snorting. Ferdinand keeps sitting under his tree. One day, men come from the city to choose the fiercest bull. Ferdinand is not interested. He sits on a bee, gets stung, and bellows in pain. The men see a huge bull jumping and roaring, and they decide he is the one.

They take him to Madrid. The bullring is crowded. The picadors come out on horses, the banderilleros wave their capes, and the matador strikes a pose. Ferdinand is led into the ring. He looks around at the crowd, the noise, the bright colors. Then he sees the flowers in the ladies' hats. He sits down and smells them. Nothing the matador does can make him fight. The crowd is disappointed. The matador is furious. Ferdinand is taken back home, where he sits under his cork tree and is happy.

That is the whole plot. There are no subplots, no villains with names, no complicated backstory. The book is about a bull who refuses to do what everyone expects him to do, and the refusal is not a rebellion. It is simply who he is.

The illustrations

Robert Lawson's drawings are the other half of the book. They are black and white, with soft shading and a lot of detail. The bulls have expressive faces. Ferdinand's mother looks tired and loving. The men from Madrid look ridiculous in their hats. The bullring is drawn with a sense of scale, so you feel how small Ferdinand is compared to the crowd and how large he is compared to the men.

Lawson was a fine artist, and he brought a European sensibility to the book. The Spanish setting is rendered with care: the cork trees, the stone walls, the costumes of the bullfighters. The drawings are not cute. They are warm and slightly satirical. The matador is a vain little man. The picadors are comic. The crowd is a blur of hats and faces. Ferdinand is the only calm figure in the whole book.

The most famous image is Ferdinand sitting in the bullring, smelling a flower. Lawson draws him with his eyes closed and his nose in the air. The matador is screaming. The crowd is jeering. Ferdinand is at peace. The contrast is the whole story in one picture.

The politics

The Story of Ferdinand was published in September 1936, a few months after the Spanish Civil War began. It was an immediate success in the United States. It was also banned in Nazi Germany, where it was seen as a pacifist tract that undermined the martial spirit. It was banned in Franco's Spain, where it was seen as an insult to the bullfight and to the regime. It was burned in Berlin. Leaf and Lawson became famous, and the book became a symbol of nonconformity.

The political reading is not hard to find. Ferdinand is a bull who will not fight. He is surrounded by men who want him to be violent. He refuses. The book was published at a time when Europe was marching toward war, and it told children that it was okay not to want to fight. That message was dangerous enough to be banned.

But the book is not a sermon. Leaf does not lecture. He tells a funny story about a bull and a bee. The politics are in the structure, not the text. That is why the book works for children who are too young to understand fascism. They understand that Ferdinand is different, that his mother loves him anyway, and that the men who want him to be fierce are silly.

Leaf reportedly wrote the text in an afternoon as a vehicle for his friend Robert Lawson, who wanted to illustrate a children's book. If that is true, it is a useful reminder that some books are made by accident. The story is not the work of a philosopher constructing a parable. It is the work of a man who found a simple image and trusted it. The politics came later, imposed by readers who saw what they needed to see.

The timing was not deliberate, but it was decisive. The book appeared in September 1936, two months after the Spanish Civil War began. American readers were watching a country tear itself apart, and here was a picture book about a Spanish bull who would not fight. The connection was unavoidable. Leaf always denied that he had written a political allegory, and he was probably telling the truth. He wanted to write a funny story about a gentle animal. The world supplied the meaning.

The book became a bestseller, and the bans made it famous. Nazi Germany objected to its pacifism. Franco's Spain objected to its disrespect for the bullfight. Both regimes understood that a children's book can carry a message more effectively than a pamphlet, because children do not know they are being taught. That is the power and the danger of the form. A story about a bull can outlast a speech about peace.

Why it still works

The book is about being yourself, but it is not sentimental about it. Ferdinand does not convince the other bulls to stop fighting. He does not change the bullfight system. He just refuses to participate. That is a modest kind of heroism, and it is more honest than a story about a bull who wins everyone over.

The mother is an important character, and she is often overlooked. She does not tell Ferdinand to be like the other bulls. She does not worry about what the neighbors will think. She sees that he is happy, and she accepts him. That is a model of parenting that is still rare in children's books. She is not permissive in a careless way. She is attentive. She knows her son.

The humor is another reason the book lasts. The men from Madrid are ridiculous. The bee is a perfect plot device. The bullring is a theater of vanity. The book is funny without being mean. It laughs at the people who want Ferdinand to be something he is not, but it does not hate them. They are just confused.

The book is also unusually honest about the limits of nonconformity. Ferdinand does not liberate the other bulls. He does not shut down the bullring. He does not persuade the matador to take up gardening. He simply goes home. That is a modest ending, and it is the right one. Most acts of refusal do not change the system. They change the person who refuses, and sometimes they make a small space where someone else can refuse too.

That modesty is why the book does not feel like a lecture. It is not asking every child to become an activist. It is asking them to notice that they are allowed to prefer flowers to fighting. The distinction matters. A story about a hero who saves everyone is a fantasy. A story about a bull who saves himself is a possibility.

What does not work

The book is very simple, and some adults find it too simple. The characters are types rather than people. The plot is a single joke. The message is clear from the first page. If you are looking for nuance or moral complexity, you will not find it here. Ferdinand is good. The bullfighters are foolish. The mother is wise. There is not much gray area.

The ending is also a little too easy. Ferdinand goes home and is happy. The bullfight industry continues. The other bulls are still dreaming of glory. The book does not ask what happens to them. It is a fable, so it does not have to, but a modern reader might want more.

The illustrations, beautiful as they are, are of their time. The Spain of the book is a tourist's Spain: cork trees, castanets, handsome matadors. It is not a real place. That is fine for a fable, but it is worth noticing.

The legacy

The Story of Ferdinand has never gone out of print. It has been translated into dozens of languages. It was made into a Disney short in 1938, which won an Academy Award. It was adapted into a feature film in 2017, which was not very good but introduced the character to a new generation. It is a staple of children's literature courses, and it is often used to teach themes of nonconformity and peace.

The book's cultural influence is larger than its page count. It is one of the few picture books that is also a political document. It was banned in Nazi Germany and in Franco's Spain, which is a strange pair of censors for a story about a bull and a flower. It is a book that adults argue about and children enjoy. That is a rare combination.

How to read it

If you are reading this with a child, take your time with the pictures. Ask why Ferdinand likes flowers. Ask why the men think he is fierce. Ask what the other bulls want. Let the child notice that Ferdinand is happy when he is alone and unhappy when he is forced to perform. The book is simple enough to read in five minutes, but it is rich enough to talk about for an hour.

If you are reading it as an adult, try to read it without the politics for a moment. It is a story about a mother who loves her son, a bull who knows what he likes, and a world that keeps trying to make him into something else. That story is not dated. It is the story of every child who has ever been told to be more like the other kids.

The book is also a good lesson in how pictures tell a story. Lawson uses scale to make Ferdinand look small in the bullring and enormous in the pasture. He uses white space to isolate him. He gives the matador a tiny moustache and a ridiculous pose. None of that is in the text, and all of it is part of the meaning. A child who learns to read those details is learning to read images as well as words.

Who should read it

The Story of Ferdinand is for children who are learning that it is okay to be quiet, for parents who want a book that models acceptance, and for adults who want to remember that a picture book can be a work of moral seriousness. It is not for readers who want a complex plot or a lot of text. It is for readers who want a small, perfect story about a bull and a flower.

I read it again while writing this, and I was surprised by how much of it I remembered. The bee. The cork tree. The flowers in the hats. The matador's face. The book had stayed with me, not because it was clever, but because it was kind. Ferdinand does not win. He just goes home. That is enough. It is more than enough.