ferdinand

Young Ferdinand does not enjoy butting heads with other young bulls, preferring instead to sit under a cork tree smelling the flowers. His mother is concerned that he might be lonely and tries to persuade him to play with the other calves, but when she sees that Ferdinand is content as he is she leaves him alone.

When the calves grow up, Ferdinand turns out to be the largest and strongest of the young bulls. All the other bulls dream of being chosen to compete in the bullfight in Madrid, but Ferdinand still prefers smelling the flowers instead. One day, five men come to the pasture to choose a bull for the fights. Ferdinand is again on his own, sniffing flowers, when he accidentally sits on a bumblebee. Upon getting stung as a result, he runs wildly across the field, snorting and stamping. Mistaking Ferdinand for a mad and aggressive bull, the men rename him "Ferdinand the Fierce" and take him away to Madrid.

All Madrid, including many beautiful ladies, turn out to see the handsome matador fight "Ferdinand the Fierce". However, when Ferdinand is let into the ring, he is delighted by the flowers in the ladies' hair and sits down in the middle of the ring to enjoy them, upsetting and disappointing everyone: "The Banderilleros were mad, and the Picadores were madder, and the matador was so mad he cried because he couldn't show off with his cape and sword." Ferdinand is then taken back to his pasture, where to this day he is still sitting under the cork tree happily smelling flowers.

[wikipedia]

The book's first run by Viking Press in 1936 sold 14,000 copies at $1 each. The following year saw sales increase to 68,000 and by 1938, the book was selling at 3,000 per week.^[1][2] That year, it outsold Gone with the Wind to become the number one best seller in the United States

this book was banned by Adolph Hitler