This picture of the book cover makes me smile. Happy October!

The Day We Danced in Underpants is the kind of book I keep on my own book shelf, along with children’s classics Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi and The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts by Shinta Cho. And here’s a good reason why: “This lesson in kindness and grace changes an embarrassing situation into an adventure,” a very astute review from Tidewater Parent.

Talk About Joie de Vivre! Written by California-based writer Sarah Wilson, the story is inspired by her grandmother, who taught her an early appreciation for French culture. Indeed! Sarah’s silly descriptions of a cast of characters –including “three wild aunts” – who dance their way across the French countryside to a picnic with the King of France makes for a perfect read-aloud, not to mention a dance-a-thon of your own.

And to do it all in underpants?

Award-winning illustrator Catherine Stock‘s hilarious watercolors literally paint the picture of “a wild party that finds even the stuffiest nobles getting down in their unmentionables,” as the book’s synopsis tells us.

When one of my friends posted a picture of the book on Facebook, I couldn’t resist starting out a new month by telling you about it. As he says, “Oh, I do that all the time!”

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