If you have not guessed, I have been reading a lot of picture books, but not writing reviews. (What do you do with a reviewer like Raven? Just wait, she’ll get there eventually….) And one book I finally got to was Hey, Hey, Hay!: A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them by Christy Mihaly.
This is a cute story about how you make the hay. Or in other words, how one kids family bales the hay to be stored for winter. The fun illustrations of Joe Cepeda and rhyming text pair nicely to give an age appropriate introduction to haying. There is a glossary in back and a surprise recipe included. The rhyming text sets the tone as bouncy but not chaotic. The illustrations are quirky and help make a story that has not a lot of traditional action interesting to be part of.
This introduction is informative as it is fun. And you do not have to worry about your hay allergies acting up like I do when you are reading. (I will never forget the night of the sitting on the hay bale as the singer performed on stage… whom I forget the name of as all I can remember is the honking of my poor stuffy nose).
Great for the younger crowd who might not be able to go visit a farm but would like to see how things are down on the farm during so the animals can have something tasty when summer is no longer around.
