If you stop and think about it, Groundhog Day is a little weird. Every February, thousands of tourists flock to Pennsylvania to watch a rodent predict the weather. A little silly, on the face of it, yes? In recent years, the holiday has come to mean more than just the arrival of an early spring or the drudging on of an even longer winter: if you have cable, you’re going to be seeing lots of reruns of one particular movie of the same name.
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| photo via news.nationalgeographic.com |
I have always been fond of Groundhog Day. I find joy in the fact that, even just for one day a year, we put reason and logic aside and believe in this charming tall tale, harmless in its oddness. With the “Pennsylvania Polka” looping in our ears, we suspend our collective meteorological knowledge for something a little more fanciful and put all our hopes for an early spring on the furry shoulders of Punxsutawney Phil.
It’s not often that this, the otherwise deemed insanity of anthropomorphism to the utmost extreme, is celebrated on such a wide scale. That is until you cross over into fiction! Readers, I give you: Animals acting like people!
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| The Three Armadillies Tuff Three fun-loving armadillo sisters are eager to cross a busy highway to get to the new dance hall on the other side, but inside the culvert lurks a spindly legged coyote… |
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| Ol’ Bloo’s Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble A hilarious backwoods retelling of the classic Brothers Grimm story The Bremen Town Musicians. Ol’ Bloo Donkey has spent year after year hauling cotton on a farm in the Deep South and dreaming of the day when he could retire from the fields to become a honky-tonk singer. |
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| The Horned Toad Prince When Reba Jo finds herself in a mess of trouble, she’s forced to strike a deal with a horned toad. |
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| Martina the Beautiful Cockroach When Martina decides to choose a husband, her grandmother gives her some shocking advice in this charming Cuban folktale. (Also available in audio!) |
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| One More Sheep A knock on the door in the middle of the night wakes up Sam and his flock. How will Sam know that the knock on the door isn’t a lost lamb but a wolf when he can’t count up to ten without falling asleep? Now it’s up to the fast-thinking sheep to help him…before it’s too late! |
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| The Scarecrow’s Hat A resourceful chicken seeks the help of her farm animal friends to solve a problem, whil giving something of herself along the way. |
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| Gilbert de la Frogponde Two chefs arrive at Gilbert’s pond in search of dinner. Too fat to escape, Gilbert must convince them that bugs — not frogs — are all the rage in culinary circles! |
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| Three Hens and a Peacock When a peacock suddenly arrives at a quiet farm, everything changes and the hens don’t like the newcomer getting attention while they stay cooped up doing all the hard work. With the help of a wise hound, they orchestrate a job swap. What follows is the hilarious tale of three hens who get in way over their feathered heads, and one very distressed peacock who just can’t figure out how to lay an egg. |
Happy Groundhog Day everyone! May it be full of illogical fits of whimsy!
*Edited at 12:38 p.m.: This just in: Phil saw his shadow! Looks like 6 more weeks of winter!