Has anyone ever read The Story of Ferdinand? I love that book and recently read it to my class and the kids loved it. I know they have it in Spanish but when I was there noone had ever heard of it.

Is it possible that the whole thing came out of Disney Studios? I do remember that there was Disney cartoon made of the story back in the '50's I think. Which came first - the story or the cartoon?
I used to have the book in Spanish - I think it came from Scholastic Books (I got it when my kids were small) but I can't remember seeing any author.

Jensdog,
I found my copy! It's called "El Cuento de Fernando" por Munro Leaf. The original copyright is 1936! The copy I have is from Scholastic Book Services and Viking Press. It's in Spanish

You can still buy the story of Ferdinand (by Munro Leaf) in bookstores. My daughter loves her copy, and it was a favorite of mine as a kid.

The story is of Ferdinand the bull, who likes to sit under a cork tree sniffing flowers while the other little bulls romp and butt one another with their horns. One day, when Ferdinand is 3 years old, some men come from the big town (I think it says Madrid...but I'm not sure and my daughter's asleep, so I can't get the book) to choose a bull for the corrida. At that very moment, Ferdinand sits on a bee and it stings him. Of course he runs around like crazy, and the men choose him. But once he gets to the bullring, and all the lovely ladies in the crowd have flowers in their hair, he just sits and sniffs. So they let him go back to his field (not likely, but kids' stories should have happy endings, right?).

If you get a chance to look at the pictures (which do include some imaginary Spanish vistas, a couple of toreros in trajes de luces, etc.), be sure to check out the cork trees, which have little clusters of wine-bottle corks hanging from them like grapes on a vine. Hilarious!

It's not the most politically correct story, but it's a classic and familiar to lots of American kids and grownups.

Not to sound like a teacher...and certainly not to sound like a grammar-loving one at that! this story is very good for teaching the distintion between the uses for the preterite and the imperfect. My students are juniors and seniors in high school and even from their 'aged' perspective, like the story.

oh I remember that story. I loved it when I was a kid! too bad more Ferdinands don't get to exit the bull ring that way

I loved, loved, lovedlovedthat book when I was a kid. My mom had my read it in English and Spanish.

I vaguely remember the cartoon, but I think it was only in English.