Market Day by Carol Foskett Cordsen (2008) is a story in rhyme. Every phrase begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, which prompted me to question the purpose of Cordsen’s grammatical choices. I was slow to realize it was poetry. Douglas B. Jones’ illustrations also confused me. When I saw the cover art, I anticipated a story published many decades ago. Not so much; this book is only 16 years old. Surprises like this make me smile. They keep me rummaging through library book sales in search of the unexpected.
This story takes place in a single day. On first page “Harvest sun up. Over bay. Over
farmhouse. Start of day.” The Benson family of four fills their truck with
apples freshly picked from their orchard. They drive to an open-air market to
sell their apples alongside Mrs. Spencer’s pies, Gracie’s peas, Clayton’s bait,
and other vendors. But something is
rumbling the ground so much as to
shake goods off farmers’ stands. It’s the Benson’s cow. If we return to
the start of the story, we see that no one shut the barn door and no one fed
the cow. “Bensons help with Market mess. Market open. Big success.”
