The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends

by Thornton W. Burgess, Harrison Cady

This deluxe edition presents three of the most popular books by a beloved storyteller. Thornton W. Burgess's timeless tales of woodland whimsy recount the exploits of Reddy Fox, Peter Cottontail, and Grandfather Frog. Featuring the original art by Harrison Cady, the stories offer young readers examples of friendship, honesty, forgiveness, and other virtues.

Genres: Picture Books

368 pages, Hardcover

Published March 19, 2014

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

[Lis · Rating 4 out of 5]

See full review @ The Indigo Quill

A special thank you to NetGalley and Dover Publications for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This new edition of Thorton W. Burgess' beloved tales is an unabridged republication of three books: The Adventures of Reddy Fox, The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, and The Adventures of Grandfather Frog. Originally published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1913-1915, these stories that have followed us through generations have been resurrected in a fresh compilation that you can read consecutively to your child or young class for maximum readability.

Thorton W. Burgess was born native of Massachusetts and began writing children's books in 1910. Ever since he was young, Burgess had a deep appreciation for nature and the endless possibilities it offered. This is reflected in his work and is shared across generations. He brought both children and adults to nature through an array of stories, especially his most famous character, Peter Rabbit. His legacy and philosophies live on through the Thorton W. Burgess Society, who operates the Green Briar Nature Center, Thorton W. Burgess Museum in Sandwich, MA, and inspires environmental education through several other mediums. I would highly suggest checking it out.

The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends is the perfect book for any child's library. They will be entertained by the human-like critters and their many adventures. Any child will enjoy the many escapes into nature and the lives of Burgess' forest friends. The stories and chapters are short for the active reader, and there are plenty of pictures to help them visualize the stories and keep their attention.

One thing I love about this edition is that it includes all the original illustrations from Harrison Cady. They are very simple and clear so they are very easy on the young eye. There is also a list of the illustrations after the contents, so if you want to simply refer to the images, you have the opportunity to do that.

I would definitely recommend this as a staple piece to any children's library. If I were to change one thing about it, I would say that it would be beneficial to add some kind of educational tool like questions about the characters or nature at the end. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book!

[Andréa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends comprises three classic Thornton W. Burgess books from the early twentieth century: The Adventures of Reddy Fox (1913), The Adventures of Peter Cottontail (1914), and The Adventures of Grandfather Frog (1915). Each of those books, in turn, is a collection of stories starring the animals of the Green Forest and its surrounding area. Although each book focuses on a different main character, the general cast of characters is the same throughout. The stories are accompanied by vintage black-and-white illustrations, six per character book for a total of 18 illustrations throughout the collection.

My digital copy had a page count of only 185, but that's a deceptive number that doesn't accurately reflect the true length of the book. It's more akin to a 300 page book, with each of the three segments equating to roughly 100 pages. The shorter format of the individual stories makes them ideal for bedtime reading; the heft of the collection ensures bedtime stories for at least a few weeks.

The animals' antics are amusing and will have kids wondering what the animals in their own gardens and woods might be up to. As with most classic stories, there are some lessons to be learned as well, including to be careful, to listen to your elders, and to not show off or be full of yourself.

Note: I received a digital copy of this book through NetGalley.

[Tali · Rating 3 out of 5]

A free copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends is actually a collection of three books written by Thornton W. Burgess, about Reddy Fox, Peter Rabbit and Grandfather Frog, all of whom live in the Green Forest.
This is a fairly innocent collection of books (most of these stories were first published in the 1910-20s) which are reminiscent of the stories of Beatrix Potter. In each of these collections, the main character gets into some kind of scrape and finds out that not only do all of their animal friends step up to help them, but that none of them are as clever as they first thought. Out of all three stories, I liked the one exploring Reddy Fox's life the best. A naughty fox who lives with his wily, old grandmother, he gets into all kind of scrapes hunting for food or trying to catch the other animals to have for his dinner. As this was the first story in the volume, the other two characters seemed a little less interesting by comparison. I also (in another Potter reference, although I'm not sure it was deliberate) could not get over the fact that one of the characters is called Peter Rabbit. I just couldn't read about this new character and get involved with his character's trials and adventures without thinking about the Peter Rabbit I grew up with who hunted for carrots in Mr Mcgregor's garden. It kind of spoiled that story for me, especially as this story compares unfavorably to that one.
All in all though, I think this was a really sweet collection of stories that would be great for young readers, and it has some nice illustrations to match. 3 stars.

[DelAnne Frazee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title: The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends
Author: Thornton W Burgess
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2-20-2014
Pages: 370
Genre: Children's Fictions
Sub-Genre: Classics; Animals
ISBN: 9780486492094
ASIN: B00IZLYHA0
Reviewed For NetGalley and Dover Publications
Reviewer: DelAnne
Rating: 5 Stars


This deluxe edition presents three of the most popular books by a beloved storyteller. Thornton W. Burgess's timeless tales of woodland whimsy recount the exploits of Reddy Fox, Peter Cottontail, and Grandfather Frog. Featuring the original art by Harrison Cady, the stories offer young readers examples of friendship, honesty, forgiveness, and other virtues.

Ilustrations that we knew as children ourselves along with the original text. We can now share this classic with our children and grandchildren. A favorite fable from our own childhood to carry on to generations to come.




My rating of "The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends" is 5 out of 5 stars.



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[Anna (booksandbookends) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of 'The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends' by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is split into three sections, telling the tales of three characters: Peter Rabbit, Grandfather Frog and Reddy Fox. Burgess has written the stories in a style which is somewhat akin to that of Beatrix Potter. Each tale is wonderfully enchanting, with adventure, mischief and humour interspersed throughout. This would be a lovely book to read to children as a bedtime story as some of the language used is sometimes a bit old fashioned and would need explaining to them. Each story is short and well paced, making them enjoyable and relatively quick to read through. Each story also has a moral, with characters coming to value strengths such as loyalty, honesty, forgiveness, friendship and kindness. These would also be brilliant to use, from a teaching perspective, as a focus to use in PSHE lessons.

A lovely story well worth sharing with younger ones.

[Mary Prado · Rating 5 out of 5]

CBZ Book Review---

The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and His Green Forest Friends
Written by Authors Thornton W. Burgess and Harrison Cady

This book has three stories--Grandfather Frog, Reddy Fox, and Peter Cottontail. This book teaches children the importance of virtue,forgiveness and honesty. My favorite is Grandfather Frog as there was a lot of adventure and mischief. These stories are timeless and will hold a special place in a child's heart.