We are continuing to love these books. I think the appeal lies in a few things for the kids. They are funny, the illustrations are well-done, and the author does a great job of drawing us into the story and creating believable adventures for the animals that live in the Green Meadow, the Green Wood, and Smiling Pool.
I love the language, and how the stories tell moral lessons without getting preachy. It is woven into the story and, I think, situations that my kids can relate to. Highly recommend for the elementary years.

We read an absolute boat-load of Thornton Burgess's stories when our two children were little ... they absolutely loved these adventures. One of their favorites was this one about Jimmy Skunk. Thornton Burgess's tales are so sweetly written with enough misadventure to satisfy young appetites !!

Was overjoyed to find the books of Burgess at Librivox.com. My favourite book as a child was The Adventures of Little Joe Otter, so it this was purely a nostalgic read/listen. This book was fun and full of hokey morals and great characters and silly situations. Great stuff.

Love all the Thornton Animal books so much!

Read this aloud to the kids but I think I enjoy these as much as they do (maybe more) :). I like these books because it presents habits of these animals in an easy to suggest manner without having to memorize facts.

I wanted to finish the Bedtime Story Books collection by the end of this year. That is looking like a very real possibility seeing as how this is book number 18 of 19. The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk by the passionate and prolific author / conservationist Thornton W. Burgess is another well-written tale that is illustrated with whimsical flare by the capable Harrison Cady.

Here, the prankster, Peter Rabbit, has the opportunity to unwittingly enlist the aid of his rival and enemy, Reddy Fox, in a silly gag that will scare Jimmy Skunk and lay the blame squarely at Reddy's feet. Along the way, Peter will suffer a bit of a fright, but Reddy will get squirted by some of Skunk's signature scent, and hence get ostracized by all the denizens of the Green Meadow / Green Forest area.

There will be another controversy about eggs between Jimmy Skunk and Unc' Billy Possum in the henhouse and Farmer Brown's boy will mediate, but there's a great deal of silliness along the way. Farmer Brown's boy continues to become an important aspect of nature, which is great due to the fact that humans have thus far continued to play a negative role. Yet Farmer Brown's boy and his mother seem to have a conversation that is all about conservation.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Bedtime Story Books, not just because of the nostalgia factor, but also because they represent a historic change in the conscientiousness of 20th century humans. There is a clear shift from just an arrogant sense of proprietary disregard for nature to an actual concern for the environment and our responsibility to it.

Peter Rabbit decides to play a joke on Reddy Fox that has lasting effects. One day, Peter watches Jimmy crawl into an old barrel for a nap. When Peter sees Reddy Fox, the rabbit devises a plan that will send Jimmy and the barrel rolling down the hill. Peter makes Sammy Jay mad in order to catch Reddy’s attention, because Peter knows that as soon as Reddy sees him, he will try to catch him. The rabbit didn’t think of the consequences if his plans didn’t work out the way he planned. He was too focused on the prank. As Reddy chases Peter, the rabbit jumps over the barrel. Reddy is running too quickly and is too focused on catching Peter so he runs right into the barrel and knocks it down the hill. From all the noises coming from the barrel, Reddy realizes that someone is in it and follows it down the hill. When the barrel stops, Jimmy comes out and sprays the innocent Reddy. Meanwhile, Peter hides in Johnny Chuck's old tunnel. The wasps that have set up housekeeping at the entrance sting Peter and drive him into the depths of the hole. Meanwhile, Sammy Jay figures out that Peter was the culprit and tells Jimmy who, then, goes to the old woodchuck hole to give Peter a bit of payback. The wasps which are very agitated keep Jimmy from finding Peter, but Jimmy realizes he doesn’t have to worry about Peter suffering from his own prank. The wasps are more than happy to keep Peter hold up in Jimmy Chuck’s old bedroom deep in the tunnel. Jimmy calls down the tunnel and tells Peter that he will come back at dark when the wasps are sleeping so he can “thank” Peter for his clever prank. That night, Jimmy calls his threat down the tunnel again. Then, he leaves. Peter stays in Johnny Chuck’s bedroom most of the night with his stomach growling and his stings smarting. Just before dawn when the wasps will wake up for the day, a worried and desperate Peter runs out of the tunnel. To his relief, Jimmy is not waiting for him. Later, Jimmy Skunk meets Unc’ Billy Possum at Farmer Brown’s hen house where they are both intent on stealing a few eggs. Unfortunately, the only eggs in the nests are china ones. Unc' Billy, in a pique of anger kicks a china egg out of a nest. It falls on Jimmy's head. Unc’ Billy spends a miserable night on the upper levels of the henhouse, stuck there by Jimmy's anger. In the morning, Jimmy ambles out of the house when Farmer Brown's son opens the door. Unc' Billy is discovered and is forced to play dead while the boy has sport with him. He lets his dog sniff him and brings him in the house to show his mother. Then, the boy lets Unc' Billy go unharmed.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com

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Loved reading allowed this book to my sons who are 3 and 5. Perfect for littles who love animals and parents who want good, quality literature to read to said littles! We are looking forward to reading lots more of these books!

The Thornton Burgess series in general is quite an endearing series of children's books, which do a fine job of being readable by young readers and having interesting plots and introducing young people to a variety of animals in a semi-anthropomorphized way. This particular entry, "The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk" is excellent, and it's a delightful read for a youngster, or for an older person who is willing to be a child again for the hour or so that it would take to read it. Strictly from a literary perspective, I might find fault with the fact that the early part of the book pays more attention to Peter Rabbit than it does to the title character, and the last few chapters focus on Unc' Billy Possum to the exclusion of the title character, but even at that, the story is interesting and enjoyable. Certainly, I have no objection to other characters appearing in the story, but it did seem that Burgess got a bit distracted from his main character occasionally.

Do kids still read Thornton W. Burgess? I still have my beloved childhood set, with a place of honor on a bookshelf at home. My father used to occasionally read a chapter or two aloud at night. I think I developed a love and appreciation of nature and animals from Burgess. Jimmy Skunk is a standard Burgess. A teensy bit preachy, but also cute and funny too. What's interesting about Burgess is that no one is purely good or bad - all the animals have shades of dark and light. In this book, Peter Rabbit, who you think would be a good guy, pulls a trick on Jimmy Skunk, and then gets a comeuppance for it. Jimmy Skunk and Unc Billy Possum would be portrayed as bad characters - creatures of the night, eaters of eggs - but they also have good characteristics. So to Sammy Jay. I like that about these books. Animals can stand in for people, and we can learn something from their mistakes. That said, these books are never overly moralistic, or perhaps less so than other books from the same time period. I think it's high time these books make a come back!

This one is a really good one to read as a stand alone if you are only going to read one Burgess book. More action than normal and fun situations. We loved it. Need to buy a copy of this one.