While researching for Strawberry Girl, Lois Lenski met this girl shown here in the above photograph. She was the inspiration for the main character, Birdie Boyer.
Here is a full-page, detailed sketch that Lenski intended to use in Chapter 9 of Strawberry Girl. We see Birdie and her family working in the fields picking and greeting a male over the fence with a group of dogs around him. In the background we see…