Our blueberry-picking excursion of the weekend has me thinking about berries. Mmmmmm, berries.
I love berries. And so do lots of other people. Berries show up in muffins, pies and other baked goods. Also in lots of books and folktales, and few songs. Plus a few other places you wouldn’t expect to find berries. Which is how berries ended up in my list of themed things.
Jamberry, by Bruce Degen
A book of a bear, a boy, and many, many berries. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. And silly rhymes.
Quickberry, quackberry
Pick me a blackberrry
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
A picturebook of berry-picking and bears, and mistaken identity.
Blueberry. The name of my stuffed bear I got from my mother for my fourth birthday. I still have him.
Violet, the gum-chewer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the book by Roald Dahl, and the movies based on it) turns into a giant blueberry.
Firefly & Buffy. Maybe Joss Whedon has a thing for strawberries. In Firefly, strawberries are a luxury item and valued commodity. A box of strawberries is what Book uses to convince Kaylee to take him on as a passenger in the pilot episode. In the Buffy Season 6 episode “Wrecked,” the creepy Rack tells Willow “you taste like strawberries.” (I also feel like there was a scene in the bronze at some point where some random dancing person gets briefly turned into a giant strawberry. Am I imagining this?)
Strawberry Shortcake. The doll. The cartoons. The empire. I still remember the commercials for the doll from when I was little. I can still hear the song, with it’s mockable swellness:
Strawberry Shortcake
My she’s looking swell!
Cute little doll
With a strawberry smell.
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear, by Don Wood Another picture book. About a mouse. And a strawberry. Also some mention of a bear.
The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, by Molly Bang. I don’t actually know this berry-oriented book, though it won a Caldecott Honor medal. I liked the author’s story of struggling to get it published.
The Strawberry Legend. A Cherokee Legend where a woman forgets her anger and remembers her love as she eats some berries. (There’s at least one book version, too.)
The Blackberry Bush, a folktale in the book Stories to Tell to Children by Sara Cone Bryant.
Blackberry . One of the rabbits from Watership Down, by Douglas Adams.
BlackBerry. An electronic device. John had one for a couple of years. He would sometimes throw it when he got email because it would irritate him so much with its onslaught of interruptions.
Blowing a raspberry. Okay, it has nothing to do with berries. It’s when you make a sort of continous spitting noise by sticking your tongue between your lips and blowing, or by blowing through loosely closed lips. I have no idea why it’s called a raspberry.
Knott’s Berry Farm. Not actually a farm, and not so much berry-ish. It’s a large amusement park. But the founder did sell berries.
Frankenberry. A cereal. Berry-flavored. Also a cartoon character from the cereal box and commercials. Has a bit of a cult following. (There also seem to be some other meanings to Frankenberry, as seen on Urban Dictionary, but they seem pretty lame to me.)
Finally, here are a few berry songs that I picked for you:
42.409653
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collecting tokens 
i think “blueberry hill” was a hit for fats domino…
how about warrant’s “cherry pie”? (i know, i know, bad 80s song…)
jenny-
“i think “blueberry hill” was a hit for fats domino…”
Could be. We have the version by Louis Armstrong, so that’s the one I know. Though to be honest, the version I know best is Ron Howard singing on Happy Days. And I’m afraid (or should I be glad?) I don’t know the “cherry pie” song. (I wasn’t sure whether to include cherries. Since some folks don’t classify them as berries.)
dude. strawberry alarm clock. you even get some incense and peppermints with that one.
Blowing a Raspberry: from Cockney Rhyming Slang.
Raspberry tart=fart
I believe.
Now I’m wondering if I’m furthering an urban legend and now must go look for a trustworthy link.
Well Wikipedia agrees with me, so it must be true. :)
NotSoSage-
Huh. A fart-rhyming reference. And if Wikipedia says so…(I can’t help it. I love Wikipedia. Fallability and all.)