Billy Mink

Smiling Pool

by Thornton W. Burgess

Join Billy Mink, Bobby Raccoon, and Jumper the Hare as they battle the Rats, a crew of robbers that takes over the Big Barn and makes life miserable for the Green Forest friends. These farmyard fables by a beloved storyteller offer valuable lessons about friendship and cooperation. Illustrations by Harrison Cady.

Genres: Animals, Childrens, Fiction, Classics

210 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

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

[Ken W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story! Very nostalgic for me! These are stories I remember reading with my dad when I was little!

[Michelle Stimpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading three Ramona (by Beverly Cleary) books aloud to my five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son, they informed me they were tired of Ramona! (I don't understand, I never get sick of Ramona!) Tonight, my five-year-old suggested that we read "Billy Mink." The copy we have was given to my dad in 1959 for having 100% attendance in the fourth grade. The book is signed by his teacher. He recommend it to the kids and they didn't forget.

Unfortunately for bedtime, every chapter ends with a cliffhanger! I got so caught up with, "just one more chapter, puh-lease!' that we wound up reading 40 pages in one night! My daughter finally protested, "okay, no more! I have to go to sleep, but I can't wait to find out what happens tomorrow!"

***

When we finished the book, Justice said, "Aw! Is it really over?" I know exactly how she feels . . .

[Karen GoatKeeper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Mink finds a trapper is out to get him. After outwitting the trapper and warning his fellow creatures, Billy decides to go on a trip to a pond. He gets sidetracked at a barn full of rats.
Written in 1919, this book does dress up the wildlife in clothes. However, the animals behave mostly in a natural manner. It does have some of the attitudes about various creatures in it, attitudes that should have changed since.
This is a fast, easy story to read. The pages fly by. Billy and his adventures are most engaging. The farmer changes his attitude about Billy. It is a charming book.

[Jimyanni · Rating 5 out of 5]

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, "Billy Mink" is one of the best of the lot, 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.

[Piers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book when I was a kid, I have an old copy my mum was given for working hard at school. I read it again just now and its every bit as chirpy as I remembered. What a lovely book.

[Jonathan Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.)

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first of the Burgess books that has a lot of killing in it. The animals that are killed are rats, but its definitely more mature. There is nothing that would give a kiddo nightmares.