Day 228: The Pigeon Needs a Bath

We LOVE Mo Willems in our house, and we were thrilled to get a copy of his latest book last week. (Thanks, Uncle Jeff!)  Since then, we've read the book I don't even know how many times, shared it with my son's kindergarten class and my daughter's preschool class, and laughed our way through countless fits of giggles.  I'm pretty sure my daughter has memorized it already, as well, since when we were reading it at bedtime last night, she insisted on saying all of the Pigeon's lines herself.  I told myself that I would stop featuring Mo Willems' books on this blog because I've already written about so many of them, but when a book is this fun and silly and wonderful, it simply must be shared!

If you aren't familiar with the Pigeon series, you need to get yourself to the library right now and take out one of these books immediately! Seriously. Go now. Read the rest of this post later. You're missing out!!  These books are absolutely hilarious and my children and I can't help but smile and laugh out loud at the Pigeon's antics each time we read them.  The Pigeon Needs a Bath is the most recent in the series, and might just be one of my favorites yet.

The cover itself lets you know just where this story is headed.  The Pigeon is filthy and needs a bath, but he insists he does not.  After all, he just took a bath last month! "'Clean.' 'Dirty.' They're just words, right?" He feels clean! As for those flies that are swarming around him? "Purely coincidental."  In true Pigeon form, he finally agrees -- reluctantly, of course -- to get into the bath, but not without one of Mo's classic multi-framed page spreads of Pigeon banter.  "The water is too hot… Too cold… Too deep!  Not deep enough… Too lukewarm… Too cold… Too hot again!… Not enough toys… Too many toys… Still too hot…"  And once he finally gets in (as I have experienced with my own children time and again), he naturally changes his mind and doesn't want to get out!  Right. On. In every way. So fun!

I suppose really needn't say anything else, other than that I hope you are able to get your hands on a copy of this fabulous book as soon as possible! Mo Willems, thank you for creating so many fantastic stories that we will remember fondly for years to come.