Although I've posted this review on the readily accessible Dover reprint of this children’s literature classic, that’s not actually the version The Eight-Year-Old is reading.

I generally love the Dover reprints. Most of our Burgess books are from the Dover collection. But in the case of The Burgess Bird Book for Children and The Burgess Animal Book for Children, it’s worth trying to find a copy from the 1940s and 1950s. Part of the magic of these two Burgess books is seeing Louis Agassiz Fuertes’ illustrations of the birds and animals featured in the story in full color. The illustrations in the Dover reprints are in black and white. It keeps the cost down, certainly, but it’s not the same.

So while we have the Dover reprints for books like The Adventures of Happy Jack and Old Mother West Wind, I really wanted the Eight-Year-Old to read his longer nature books in an older version with color photographs.
I had my copy of The Burgess Bird Book for Children from my childhood library already, and this past summer, The Eight-Year-Old and I stumbled across a 1950 edition of The Burgess Animal Book for Children in an antique store in upstate New York. The cover is falling apart, but it has all of those glossy full-color photograph pages.

(Antique stores are one of my favorite places to shop for books for The Eight-Year-Old, btw. Every once in a while you can find a surprisingly good selection of now out-of-print children’s classics for $1 or $2, or if you’re feeling especially profligate, as I clearly was in this case, $8. But then, I’d been looking for this book for a very long time.)

The Eight-Year-Old tells me that the Animal book isn’t quite as engrossing as the Bird book was. But The Burgess Animal Book for Children can’t be all that bad, because she pulled it out again this week to read for at least the fifth time.

See the original post on Caterpickles.

I’d rather watch Wild Kratts to learn about animals.

This was a very nice overview of all the animals in North America.

“Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don’t forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.” -Old Mother Nature

I was talking with an elderly woman about the Burgess Animal Book and she was delighted to hear that we were reading it for school. She remembers receiving a Burgess book as a gift when she was a little girl, around Olivias age (8). I hope my kids will look back with fondness and happy memories of all the characters we loved reading about together this year.

Learned more about North America animals in this book more than anything else! It was on the AO y2 list

I grant that this is a living book, but I just didn't enjoy it very much. The Burgess books cover a LOT of ground, almost too much to really retain much. It was usually one of my daughter's favorite school books at any given time, but she had trouble narrating it. I will try something different for nature lore with my next student.

Only took a year and a half

This was a great book for working through half a chapter a day in morning time. I was honestly targeting the older girls with this book, but the 5yo more often than not narrated specific facts from it to her daddy later that day. I can't say it was enthralling for me, but I found it mostly charming, and the kids always liked it more than all their other morning time books while it was the rotation.

I bought this book and had such high hopes for it but goodness is it dry and hard to read aloud. My child was not in the least bit interested and dreaded listening to it. I'd like to go back and finish it since I don't like stopping before a book is complete but I'm not certain it's worth it.

It teached me about animals. - Lilia

This was such a cute way to teach kids about animals.

"Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don't forget that, and never miss a chance to learn."

And so ended Old Mother Nature's school in the Green Forest. One by one her little pupils thanked her for all she had taught them, and then started for home. Peter Rabbit was the last.

"I know ever and ever so much more than I did when I first came to you, but I guess that after all I know very little of all there is to know," said he shyly, which shows that Peter really had learned a great deal.

The boys and I read this all year and they really enjoyed it. I have to admit I liked the format a little better than Burgess Bird book but admittedly did not finish that book but I'm looking forward to doing it next year. We learned a lot and the boys always asked to keep reading!