One Fine Day

Nonny Hogrogian grasps her readers attention before they even so much as move their hand to open the front cover of her tale One Fine Day.  The  marvelous illustrations crafted using delicate brush strokes on canvas won Hogrogian the Caldecott Medal winner in 1971.  These paintings commence the story before any glimpse of the text emerges, as readers will find an old woman with a pail walking and a small fox lurking in the woods on the title page.
      The text appears and story unfolds, as the little fox makes its way to a pail of milk.  The angry old woman and owner of the milk becomes outraged and cuts off his tail in one fell swoop, claiming that she will not return his tail until he returns her milk.  The fox meanders on to find a cow, who requests some grass in exchange for the milk.  The field beckons the fox to bring it some water and the fox continues on its way to the stream.  Like the field and cow, the stream would like something in return, specifically a jug.  Continuing along his journey the fox talks with a fair maiden, a peddler, and a hen.  The hen's request for grains sends the fox searching for a miller and when the poor little fox reaches the miller he bursts into tears.  Showing more apathy than the creatures and people before him the miller agrees to give him some grain out of the goodness of his heart.  After returning and retrieving all of the items the fox finally makes his way back to the old woman with the milk she requested and she reattaches his tail.
    The story ends as it began, with a simple illustration and no text.  However, the read must be certain to flip to the back of the very last page to find the little fox scurrying through the woods to find his friends.  The illustrations also provide the element of time to the story.  At the beginning of the tale the sun is slowly rising far to the left of the center binding, and as the fox proceeds on his journey the sun makes its way across the top of the page.  The sun finally sets far to the right of to center binding depicting that the fox has traveled for an entire day to complete his mission and retrieve his tail.  Furthermore, the fox's emotions are carefully depicted in the paintings, as the light of hope and happiness slowly vanish from the fox's face. Though at first glance the illustrations seem simple and devoid of details, it takes a discerning eye to unveil the extensions these paintings make to the text. 
     Nonny Hogrogian found inspiration for her story in an Armenian folktale, in fact there are quite a few Armenian folk tales for those interested in expanding their knowledge of Armenian history.  Hogrogian has written a another rendition of an Armenian tale, entitled The Contest.  Teachers may wish to take time to introduce children to the country of Armenia after reading this book to allow children to make connection between the setting of the book and the country.  The story also lends itself to a lesson in which children can sequence the events that take place on the fox's journey.  For example, students could be given slips of paper with one step of the journey and asked to work together to rewrite the story on the board.