Click on the smaller images above for a full page view.

Adapted from a traditional folk verse by Barbara Emberley, Drummer Hoff is a 1968 Caldecott Medal-winner that uses a cumulative rhyme to tell the story. Each of an ascending line of military officers brings a particular piece (the rammer, the powder, the barrel, etc.) to create a huge cannon. When the General finally arrives and says, FIRE!’” the cannon explodes with a double-page ferocious roar. Published in 1967 and in the midst of the Vietnam War, the final page shows the artillery piece in an abandoned field with flowers growing around it. Emberley’s exquisite colored woodcuts capture both the humor of the text and the horror of war. A first edition, first printing with the illustrator’s large signature on a front endpaper.