Gracie Lee and the Bean Rooster is not the title of a children’s picture book, (not yet anyway). What I’m talking about is the bean rooster picture families displayed on kitchen walls during the 1960s and 1970s. Some of my younger readers may not have experienced the joy of the bean rooster. Back during the days of Paint-By-Number, when we cut paper dolls from the Sears Catalog and life wasn’t perfectly staged for Pinterest, moms and kids gathered around the dining room table to glue beans to a pattern. Every type and color of dried bean.

I thought peas looked way better on rooster tail feathers than on my plate.Continue Reading