One Fine Day

This delightful book is a 1972 Caldecott Medal Winner.

Exposition: This story is about a fox as he travels through a great forest. His unfortunate encounter with an old woman leads him to other parts of the forest in search of help for his dilemma.

Conflict: Our poor little main character, Fox, finds himself in quite a predicament. He is a very thirsty little guy and when he stumbles upon a pail of milk he drinks it up. Unbeknownst to him the milk belonged to an old woman in turns cuts off his tail. Fox wants his tail sewed back on but the ond lady only agrees to do that if her milk is returned.

Rising Action: Fox is very sad and afraid if he returns to his friends he will be laughed at because he has no tail. He decides to set out into the forest in search of milk. This way he can repay the old woman and have his tail sewed on.

Climax: Fox begins a frustrating journey to find milk by first asking a cow. The cow will only give him milk for grass. Grass asks for water. Water asks for a jug. And on and on until we meet a kind man.

Falling Action: The kind man is the answer to Fox's problem. He asks for nothing in return and Fox is able to use the man's kindness to set off a chain of events to eventually return the milk to the old woman.

Resolution: As promised, once the milk was returned to the woman, she sewed on Fox's tail. He was able to happily return to his freinds.

The illustrations in this book are wonderful. They are very childlike in nature such as disproportinate limbs but it works for this very sweet tale about Fox. It appears that they may be watercolor or some type of wash. The pictures are bright and colorful. This book was first published 40 years ago and the illustrations would still hold the attention of any child today.

Hogrogian, N. (1971). One fine day. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.