[We're celebrating April in picture book Paris. Please comment with your favorite picture books that are (even remotely) about Paris, and I'll add them to my list and post them next week. Merci!]

Thank you to Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for recommending A Spree in Paree by Catherine Stock (Holiday House, 2004); we checked it out from the library last week and have toured the city alongside Monsieur Monmouton's farm animals many times since. The animals are typical tourists: the sheep go shopping on the Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore, the goats enjoy the flowers in the Luxembourg gardens, the cows gaze at paintings of cows in the Louvre (that one cracks the kids up), and at the end of the day the pigs take everyone to dinner at a three-star restaurant. It's absolutely delightful, and you can read it right here courtesy of Lookybook:

Do the animals go to New York next? Yes, they went last year. A Porc in New York (Holiday House, 2007), is also available on Lookybook: note the parallels between the animals' trips to Paris and New York (this time the sheep go shopping at a famous New York department store, the goats ride the carousel in Central Park, and they all have dinner in Chinatown); and the promise that next time we see them, they'll be back on their farm with an American visitor for Monsieur Monmouton.

[I was just thinking I might like to see more of Monsieur Monmouton's little farm myself (with my husband and children, of course) when I noticed that author and illustrator Catherine Stock is essentially his next-door-neighbor. We might even rent her cottage in Rignac. Someday!]