Little Girl planted a garden of peas, but oh, my, were those peas in for trouble! "Come July, those peas got ripe and ready to eat. Little Girl went out in her garden. Started going down the row. Picking peas. Started singing..." She leaves the "little bitty" peas to grow some more, but that's only because she hasn't met up yet with Mr. Rabbit. Little Girl thinks she's finally gotten the best of that rabbit, but one of the last pages shows him busily "Pickin' peas...and landin' on his knees!" Little Girl is a contemporary kid dressed in boldly colored summer clothes with her hair in ribbons and sunglasses in place on her face. Cummings' wonderful large-size images of this determined brown-skinned gardener and her pesky adversary fairly leap from sun-filled illustrations. MacDonald combined Southern written sources dated 1897 and 1922 to create this enjoyable picture book version for which she offers her own tune and directions for retelling the story with movements or acting it out. (Ages 3-8)

Pickin peas. Land on my knees! sings a pesky rabbit as he merrily eats his way through the pea patch Little Girl has planted. But when Little Girl snatches him up and takes him home to put in a box until pea season is over, the rabbit is soon singing a new tune as he plans his escape. With a nod to Brer Rabbit, Pickin Peas is based on two folktales collected in Alabama and Virginia at the end of the last century. The lively storytelling voice of Margaret Read MacDonald, matched with Pat Cummingss bright, bold pictures, makes this funny battle-of-wits tale perfect to tell out loud, letting everyone share in the fun of chanting its rhymic refrain!