When it comes to kids' picture books, we are all big fans of Mo Willems in our household. (At the moment, he is rivaled only by Adam Rex in our collective estimation, if anyone is keeping score.)

Before heading out to Duncanville for Thanksgiving last week, I chanced on a lot of great printouts on the Pigeon Presents! site, including a "How to draw Pigeon" tutorial in the "Pigeon's Teacher's Guide" (found in the "boring Grown-up stuff" section of the site). Georgia spent most of the three hour drive north from Austin coloring all of the Piggy, Elephant, Leonardo, Knuffle Bunny, Pigeon, and Edwina stuff I'd printed out for her, and when we got to my folks place she set up shop at the kitchen table and kept right on going. When she finally got to the How To Draw Pigeon page, I read it aloud for her as she followed the steps (you know the kind of thing... "Step 1, draw a circle. Step 2, draw a smaller circle inside it for the eye."), and then she started drawing pigeons. Or, to be more precise, Pigeons. So far, she hasn't stopped.

The following example was probably the third and fourth pigeons she drew, respectively, at the point when she'd started coloring them. And of course, she has to sign her name, hence the "Georgia R." at the top. (The Santa and mincemeat on the upper right and left are magnets adhering the paper to the refrigerator in my parents' house, where it is on exhibit.)


Not bad for a four year old, eh?