Tommy and the Wishing Stone

by Thornton W. Burgess, Harrison Cady (Illustrator)

A sulky lad happens across a sitting-stone that unexpectedly grants his wish to become a meadow-mouse. In this wise woodland fable, Tommy experiences life from the point of view of several forest creatures, including a bird, a mink, and a humble toad. In the course of his adventures, Tommy learns that the life of "lesser folk of fur and feathers" isn't quite what he imagined it to be. This heartwarming century-old tale by master storyteller Thornton Burgess features the original edition's charming Harrison Cady illustrations.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Childrens, Classics

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Thornton W. (Waldo) Burgess (1874-1965), American author, naturalist and conservationist, wrote popular children's stories including the Old Mother West Wind (1910) series. He would go on to write more than 100 books and thousands of short-stories during his lifetime.

Thornton Burgess loved the beauty of nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years in books and his newspaper column, "Bedtime Stories". He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column.

Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton Burgess was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They both lived in humble circumstances with relatives or paying rent. As a youth, he worked year round in order to earn money. Some of his jobs included tending cows, picking trailing arbutus or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy and trapping muskrats. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch.

Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time. But he disliked studying business and wanted to write. He moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he took a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written under the pen name W. B. Thornton.

Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died only a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III. Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his birthplace and spiritual home.

In 1960, Burgess published his last book, "Now I Remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist," depicting memories of his early life in Sandwich, as well as his career highlights. That same year, Burgess, at the age of 86, had published his 15,000th story. He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91 in Hampden, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is in my favorites and gets five stars for a simple, very sentimental reason. It's the first bit of prose fiction I ever owned, given to me as a gift before I could even read, no doubt because the main character's name is Tommy. (No one, other than my mom, has called me that in a long time.) I remember trying to learn to read with it and discovering that learning to read is hard. Later, after I could read, I went back and checked it out and discovered that it was pretty good. It definitely pandered to my love for nature.

It's interesting that this little book of sentimental stories about a little boy who can temporarily experience what it's like to be different animals by wishing on a stone, was first published in 1915, while World War I was raging and the flower of a generation was having its belief in goodness blown to bits. Wonders never cease.

[Melani Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all loved reading this 100-year-old book in our 100-year-old house. Our edition had an inscription from 1921. I found this to be a beautiful way to teach respect for animals.

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though the Bedtime Stories, Green Meadow, Green Forest, & Smiling Pool series are easier reading for children and many of them make better introductions to Thornton W. Burgess’ work, I would nominate Tommy and the Wishing Stone as hands down Burgess’ BEST book.

Tommy is feeling sorry for himself because he has chores to do. He sees a mouse and envies it for not having chores, and imagines that it lives a carefree life. He wishes he was a mouse too, and suddenly--he is! For the rest of the first chapter, Tommy learns firsthand how difficult and frightening it is--anything but carefree!--to be a real mouse living in the wild.

In dreams, Tommy is thrust into life as--and must fend for himself as--12 wild animals one after the other: a meadow mouse (vole), a red squirrel, a rabbit, a fox, a goose, a toad, a muskrat, a grouse, a mink, a raccoon, a beaver, and a bear--one animal per chapter. He learns how difficult and dangerous it is to live as these wild animals, and comes to respect and sympathize with them.

This book is important not only because it’s a great read, providing a riveting firsthand experience of the dangers of living as these wild animals, but also because it documents how Farmer Brown’s Boy (Tommy) grows from hunting wild animals to being a friend to them. Without having read this book, that transition may seem sudden and unmotivated from his earlier books to his later books.

Tommy and the Wishing Stone was first serialized in twelve monthly issues of St. Nicholas magazine from November 1914 through October 1915. Four illustrations per episode were included, all by Harrison Cady, who was by then Burgess’ main illustrator. After the serialization was complete, the magazine’s publisher, The Century Company, published Tommy and the Wishing Stone in 1915 as a 12-chapter book, with all 48 original illustrations.

In the 1920s Little, Brown gained the rights to this book and split it into three volumes, each with 4 chapters as listed above, and each with 8 of the original illustrations, leaving out half of the original 48. The three volumes were given the following titles:

Tommy and the Wishing Stone
Tommy’s Wishes Come True
Tommy’s Change of Heart

For nearly a century, that series of three titles, with only half the illustrations, was the only convenient way to get Tommy. But in 2011, Dover published it in a single volume, with all 48 (!) original illustrations. Unfortunately the print edition seems to be out of print, but the Kindle edition may still be available (search Amazon on B00I17XTRU, the Kindle edition ASIN).

If you only read one Thornton W. Burgess book, I would highly recommend making it Tommy and the Wishing Stone.

This review is excerpted from my 2016 Kindle book, “Thornton W. Burgess Reader’s Guide & Book Collector’s Guide”.