"Ox-Cart Man" by Donald Hall Illustrated by Barbara Cooney

Adding a Caldecott Award winner seems a little cheap- of course this book is excellent.  I've read it now as part of our homeschooling to Bowden and Lucy- now eight and six- and I read it regularly with Jack and Miles- 4 and 2, respectively.  I love that this book describes a pre-consumer lifestyle that used to be how everyone lived in the western world, but is now so far-removed from most of our experience that they seem like fairy tales.  Flax into linen?  Might as well be straw into gold!
Part of this book, too, appeals to the part of me that wants to be a farmer.  And a shepherdess.
Jack and Miles and I all give a little sigh when the Ox-Cart man sells his Ox.  Tender-hearted city folk that we are.
(Scholastic Inc. 1979)