3.5 stars & 4/10 hearts. I enjoy this book quite a bit. I love how it talks of right & wrong, and it’s actually pretty humorous too! 

A Favourite Quote: “As black is black and white is white / So wrong is wrong and right is right.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “He always thought of Hooty the Owl as stupid. That is, he always thought of him that way in daytime. At night, when he was waked out of a sound sleep by the fierce hunting cry of Hooty, he wasn’t so sure about Hooty being stupid, and he always took care to sit perfectly still in the darkness, lest Hooty’s great ears should hear him and Hooty’s great eyes, made for seeing in the dark, should find him. No, in the night Blacky was not at all sure that Hooty was stupid.“

The book was drab and repetitive. I think creatures in the book written by Burgess have nothing to eat else than eggs. Also they are to wise to fall into any pitfalls. Anyhow I liked this book.

A fun story that works well to pick up after chapter 17 of The Burgess Bird Book for Children. This is what we did as directed by our Burgess Birds lesson plans, and the kids enjoyed having a little book solely about Blacky the Crow after the expansive bird population of the Burgess Bird Book. Now we resume our regularly scheduled programming. :-)

This story does make ample use of "Mother Nature" wherever "God" would more aptly apply. It's easy enough to edit on the fly if desired.

Read aloud with my seven year old while we are studying birds.

Read as a kid

I read a lot of these books as a beginner reader & I lived on a farm. I loved animal stories. Reading it as a grandma gave me a different perspective - nicely written for young readers I feel.

I loved this book! Probably more as a child than an adult, but nonetheless, it brought back great memories. I am sure I read every book in the series of the woodland creatures and learned many of the lessons they taught. I could not wait for the bookmobile to home and bring me new adventures. These would most likely be good stories for a parent and child to share at bedtime.

I think the time is right for reprints. There's some great environmentalist support in this series.

The Burgess Books

This is a phrase that brings a smile to my face as often as I hear it. As a young child, I would lose myself for hours in the simple world of the wood and pond inhabited by Little Joe Otter, Buster Bear, Grandfather Frog, and terrorized by Farmer Brown's Boy. I can remember the very shelf, even the exact spot in the little library in Felton, CA where these books were kept. I would return practically every week with a new armload to last me until our next trip to the library. Often I would carry out stories that I read several times before, just so I could once again escape into this imaginary world of furry mischief.

I remember these books well in concept, though the specifics of most of the stories elude me. It was easily fifteen years ago when I began reading them and has been over a decade since I last picked up one of Burguess' stories to read it. That being said, this review is being written as a look back.

These stories are very simple and very fun. Of course, they are children's literature, so that's to be expected, but these stories strike me as especially so. Even still, I can remember some fascinating things I gleaned between the their covers.

For one thing, Burgess did a fantastic job of presenting the ideas of persepective and motivation in simplistic terms. For example, "The Adventures of Danny Field Mouse" would cast Old Man Coyote as a vicious, mean creature wishing to prey on Danny and his friends and family. Yet, pick up instead "The Adventures of Old Man Coyote" and you'll see that when the story is told with him as the protagonist, those pesky field mice are annoying and useful for little more than a snack. After reading both books, you're no more inclined to think of Old Man Coyote as a villian than you are to think of Danny Field Mouse as a pest that should be exterminated. (Note: This is a generic example. I do not recall if Old Man Coyote plays a role in Danny Field Mouse's story or the other way around, but this concept was presented several times. It made an impression on me.)

The only characters consistantly presented as antagonists were Farmer Brown and his boy. This would be one of the only things that I chalk up as odd, or maybe just a little "off" in these books. Humans and their influence on nature are presented as a negative influence on nature and animals - always. It's interesting to note though that while humans are seen as a negative, humanity is lauded and held up as virtuous. All of the animals take on not only human personalities but characteristics, traits, and mannerisms. From a frog with a monocle and an otter with a handkerchief tied to a stick, to a busy-body Jay and a reclusive owl who desires only to be left alone, humanity and it's traits keep cropping up.

Which would be another thing of value I feel that I saw in the Burgess books. These stories are full of social interaction and personality conflicts, even if they are charicatured more often than not. We see over and over again a working out of peace, if not harmony, between conflicting personalities. It may not always be easy to point out a scripture to reinforce the lesson implied, but social harmony is presented and more often than not, resolution is through reconciliation, forgiveness, or a similar method that is not only laudable, but distinctly Christian in action if not motivation.

All in all, the world created by Thornton W. Burgess is imaginative, innocent, fun, and educational. My reccomendation? Grab a handful from your local library, gather a group of kids as an excuse, and lose yourselves in childhood imaginations as you read aloud the stories that have captivated several generations of young readers with the antics of our furry, albiet elusively human, friends.

(Disclaimers: As I said, it has been over a decade since I actually read one of Burgess' books. As such, there may be a specific example that's a little off in this review or something that I would have noticed as an adult that my childhood memories are missing. Also, all of these books say I read them in 1998. While I'm certain I read several of them that year, I'm sure I read some before and after that date as well.)

For years I've been trying to figure out the name of the crow-story book I read back in the second grade so long ago. Not remembering the title made hunting for it in bookshops pretty much impossible. I only remember the cover being red and of the thick plain "library binding" type, so I've been hunting for years for thick red hardcovers when that's probably not what I should have been looking for. On a whim this evening I typed "classic children's books crow" into Google and this title was the second to pop up and upon looking at it it seemed to be the one I've been after. I remember that there were a whole series of related books of animal stories by this author on the shelf in that elementary school library of yore; and indeed Burgess wrote a large series of related books. So I think this ends my search. I just remember this being the first "real" book I ever read after graduating up from Dr. Seuss.