Mother West Wind's Animal Friends

Old Mother West Wind #3

by Thornton W. Burgess

When a mysterious stranger comes to live in the Green Forest, its regular inhabitants become curious and alarmed. Who is this creature and how does he manage to protect himself from even the strongest of the animals--including Mr. Bobcat and King Bear? This is the 24th title in Dover's best-selling series of children's books by Thornton Burgess. Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1918. 6 black-and-white illustrations.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Animals, Childrens, Fantasy, Short Stories

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1912

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

[Carrie Kellenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic collection of children's tales written in 1912. My copy is over 50 years old now. It's wonderful to catch up with old and dear animal friends.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read these short stories over a series of months to my kids at lunch. They are perfectly delightful and appeal to a wide range of ages.

[Brandee Shafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading these stories to my little kids was an especially sweet experience because the book was given to my dad in 1952, when he was four years old. He remembers my grandma reading the stories to him. I tried my best to do voices, which was kind of challenging because there are so many! characters. My 10yo wasn't as interested as her younger siblings. My 6yo absolutely loved the stories and asked for more; fortunately, Burgess wrote 150K of them (70 books!), so I should be able to oblige.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a cute collection of animal stories, you could read them before you went to bed! :) I will try to get my little brother to read this one.

[Lawrence Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thornton W. Burgess' animal fables are always a joy.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read with Asa for Y0.5. What a fun little collection of forest stories. ☺

[Gingaeru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine living in a peaceful little neighborhood where one or two of your neighbors just happen to be cannibals who may either greet you in passing, criticize you, play a prank on you, or devour you at any given moment. That exact scenario represents one rather alarming aspect of this series, where some of the characters that casually interact with the rest are also predators, occasionally attempting to feast upon their smaller neighbors (old Granny Fox especially doesn't mess around). It's kind of reminiscent of serial killers in the real world. "Grandfather Frog looked at Billy Mink severely. He does not like Billy Mink, who has been known to gobble up some of Grandfather Frog's children when he thought that no one was looking."

I hadn't heard of Mother West Wind until I found this together with the fifth volume. I figured it was possible to jump in without the context of the first two. There's talk of a "Mother West Wind" rising early and sending her "Merry Little Breezes" (who seem to be male) off to play or whatever. There's also an "Old Mother Nature," whom I assume is a separate entity? But these characters are mostly in the background, and none of the four illustrations depict them. The first story is about the Breezes encountering a small fire. Now, these are literal sentient breezes. But instead of, I don't know, dancing around the flames to create a vacuum, they allow it to spread dramatically while they go off to warn all the animals and a couple of humans, leaving it up to them to put it out. When they can't, the breezes bring rain clouds to drench the flames (which they could've done from the start). Property was jeopardized, and it just felt wrong.

Most of the other stories showcase the negative qualities of the various animals. They can be rude little busybodies, spend all day elaborately pranking each other, or savagely try to consume the defenseless at random. One chapter focuses on Peter Rabbit's (no relation) sudden obsession with the pagan "Easter" and his inexplicable desire to wastefully roll stolen eggs down a hill, which was an entirely disturbing experience. Several chapters in a row focused on Johnny Chuck running away from home at Peter's behest. He ends up squatting in an abandoned house, and his mother is never mentioned again... Two chapters have Grandfather Frog tell a mythical tale about the origins of a porcupine's quills and a crow's black coloration, respectively. There's only one chapter in which the animals selflessly help a muskrat build his winter home (though they did a great deal of making fun of the guy beforehand).

The prose was dreadfully repetitive, to the point that I started nodding off when I only had four stories left, forcing me to quit for the day. But I'm in it for the little anthropomorphic meadow critters. This volume has slightly more realistic illustrations, and Johnny Chuck looks particularly horrific in his early 1900s little boy's getup. But the wee chipmunk confidently standing there in his suspended shorts with a tiny trowel in hand is all I could ever ask for.
...

5/10

[Katielin317 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this aloud to my boys and they loved the stories of all the mischievous animals. The language is rich and engaging.

[Jeneé · Rating 2 out of 5]

My grandma found this book in a bunch of her old stuff and gave it to me. There is no publishing date or anything inside the book but I can tell just by reading it that it is very old fashioned. It is a mix of fairy tales and fables. There are a few chapters that tell why certain animals have certain features like why the porccipine has quills or why the crow is black. And the rest of the book consists of chapters all about the little animals that live in the Green Medow. All the little animals have distinct personalities and each chapter teaches a new leason that the little animals learn. It is a very fast read considering it's a childrens book but it is also very fasinating and cute. A fun little book to pass the time. If you really like fairy tales and fables, things of that nature, I would deffinitly read this book, its a good addition to any fairy tale lovers collection.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute story geared toward a younger audience. While it was an entire book, the chapters were akin to short stories. I feel that it would be great in a bedtime situation as you could read one chapter per night. It would keep the kids engaged and hopefully looking forward to the next night where they got to hear more about the Merry Little Breezes and the other creatures of the Green Forest area. Overall, it was fun to read with lots of characters to enjoy (mostly animals).