Hey, Hey, Hay! A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them

This nostalgic, rhyming ode to baling hay is narrated by a girl whose broad grin makes clear her love for farm life. As she feeds a horse in winter, she recounts “the tale/ of storing summer in a bale./ Every June, when grass turns green,/ our hayfield makes a pretty scene.” In Cepeda’s sophisticated art, the girl trades her barn coat for overalls and details how she and her mother mow with a red tractor and “Run the tedder through/ to fluff the grass and dry the dew.” After a break to let the hay dry, they roll out their blue baler and then store the bales in the barn. Tool and truck enthusiasts will enjoy the descriptive content (Mihaly includes an end list of “haymaking words”). Cepeda uses thick painterly layers to capture the beauty and brilliance of summer fields and changing skies. Ages 4–8. [em](Aug.) [/em]