This book is inextricably linked to autumn in my mind. I’m not entirely sure why that is, since the illustrations and poems are not all autumnal. I think perhaps it’s that fall always feels like the season of nostalgia to me; time to go back to school, time for hot mulled cider and fresh doughnuts and the smell of fallen leaves. So I take this book out and page through it at least once a year, usually around the beginning of October.

Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes captures a lot of that old-timey nostalgia for me, from the opening page with all the fox children in their night-shirts gathered around the hearth listening to Father Fox singing his song, to the general store with its barrels of pickles, to the country fair. The poems range from humorous stories to striking imagery to sad musings. But it really is the illustrations that I love about this book.

In putting together this series of posts, I am also noticing that there’s a common theme to my favorite picture books: they all have complicated illustrations that you want to study and hunt through for all the little details. Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes is no exception. Like the illustrations to the “Country Bumpkin pick a pumpkin” rhyme, where not only do you see the farmer fox bringing a giant pumpkin to his sweetheart who then bakes it into a Valentine’s day pie, but also the crow in the branches outside, longing for a valentine of his own (and getting one).

Thomas Thomas Tinkertoes
Upside down & away he goes!
He’s off to call upon the Queen
In blue & crimson velveteen

~from Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes by Clyde Watson and Wendy Watson