Blueberries for Sal Play Date with BlueBEARy Pancakes

A child’s imagination created the perfect blueberries and bears-themed Playdate

The Book:

I have enjoyed the book, Blueberries for Sal for as many years as I’ve been alive. It was a 1949 Caldecott Honor Winner, and the timeless story is still fun for parents and children. It makes a great Read-Aloud to add to your library. I was not aware that Robert McCloskey used his own family members as models for the book. Sal is modeled after McCloskey’s oldest daughter, Sarah, and the model for the mother in the book was McCloskey’s wife, Peggy. Originally, the book was printed with blueberry-colored ink, which added to the charm. Newer copies are plain old black and white.

The Activity:

I didn’t anticipate that my granddaughter would help me re-invent this Playdate in real time. This was a thrown-together activity for a morning when I hadn’t made any plans. I grabbed a copy of the book and a few pancake-making supplies as I ran out the door. It wasn’t until we started mixing our pancakes that she insisted, “No, Grandma. You said we were going to make Bear pancakes!”

I said we were going to make blueberry pancakes, but after reading the book, her imaginative little brain was already thinking about bears. And I like her iteration a lot better than mine. I think you will too.

First, enjoy reading the book together. I brought a small tin pail and some fresh blueberries so she could drop her berries into the pail, “kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk” and snack on a few while reading the story.

Next, we mixed up some blender oatmeal pancakes using a recipe we adapted from Faith Goimarac Ralphs’s Plant-Based Cooking for Kids. It’s an easy, kid-friendly recipe you will enjoy even if it isn’t breakfast time. Use caution with the blender. I always keep it unplugged while adding ingredients to help eliminate accidents.

The Family Story:

When possible, I like to include a family story with my play dates. It helps me create fun connections with my grandchildren. My story included telling her about the very first time I tasted blueberry pancakes. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Cornwall made them for us. We had gone on a field trip to the zoo, and because her home was near the zoo, the school bus stopped at her house and we had a pancake breakfast right in our teacher’s backyard.

I don’t know whether I had never tasted blueberries at all, or whether I had just never tasted them in pancakes. But that vivid memory of first grade and gruff-old Mrs. Cornwall (who became the tender Grandma version of herself as the year progressed) was a happy part of my childhood.

Here are some questions you can think about to draw out your own family stories:

• Do you remember the first time you tasted blueberries?
• When was the first time you ever attempted to make pancakes? Who taught you to make them?
• Do you have other Robert McCloskey books that were favorites in your childhood? Consider getting copies of these to share.
• Have you ever gone berry picking? Tell the story, and consider a trip to a berry patch to pick some of your own together.

Additional Activities:

Paint with pigments made of blueberries and blackberries: Find instructions for steeping berries to remove their pigment, then add some white paint to make new paint colors for your own blueberry-themed artwork.

Print