by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 05, 2010

"The great parade began with a doughnut that Billy had tied to his belt with a string." A curious hen follows the dangling doughnut, and soon a slinky cat is following the hen. Then a big dog joins the chase, plus a little girl named Daisy, and there's also some nearby children who were rehearsing a play. They rush along, still in their costumes, and by the end of the book there's a huge gathering of nearly everybody in the town!

"The Great Doughnut Parade" is really a happy story about people, and they're all drawn with soft, bright watercolors. Author-illustrator Rebecca Bond grew up in a tiny village in Vermont, according to the book's jacket, and she personally witnessed the phenomenon of a big events springing from very small beginnings. "Cows escape, get into the garden, dog starts barking, cats run, people holler, call neighbors… This is VERY familiar to me!" She even dedicates the book to a group of people called the BLT bunch - "the lovely crazy lot of you."

The bright watercolor drawings of the townfolk appear towards the bottom on each page's white background - implying they all lining up for the spontaneous parade. The story is all about the fun of their spontaneous celebration, and it even rhymes - a little loosely - which helps add to the book's festive tone.  

"Now you can imagine all the confusion
When somewhere on Main Street they picked up a band -
All nosy and joyful and jolly and gleaming,
All beaming with pleasure like this had been planed."

The rhymes list out people joining in, but it's fun to see their faces in Bond's colorful illustrations. (They're all smiling - as though they're in on a private joke.) There's waiters and diners, mailmen, bricklayers, firemen, sign-painters, and joggers. There's a covey of quail, and a barnyard's worth of swine - as the participants get more and more unlikely.

"And there were some things you just new saw there -
Cloud catchers came with the clouds they caught.
Citizens came from the pages of history.
Little May Pinker brought things she had thought."

That's my favorite illustration of all. Bond illustrates the clouds by drawing a blue streak into each butterfly net. And Little May Pinker is apparently thinking about Humpty Dumpty and the clock from "Hickory Dickory Doc." And then the book reaches a suitably zany conclusion, when little Billy (with the doughnut) abruptly stops - creating a massive pile-up.

"You never quite think of the marvelous things that happen when doughnuts are tied up with strings!"

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