Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland

by Howard R. Garis

Once upon a time, after Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice bunny rabbit gentleman, had some funny adventures with Baby Bunty, and when he found that his rheumatism did not hurt him so much as he hopped on his red, white and blue striped barber pole crutch, the bunny uncle wished he might have some strange and wonderful adventures.

"I think I'll just hop along and look for a few," said Uncle Wiggily to himself one morning. He twinkled his pink nose, and then he was all ready to start.

"Good-bye, Nurse Jane! Good-bye!" he called to his muskrat lady housekeeper, with whom he lived in a hollow stump bungalow. "I'm going to look for some wonderful adventures!" He hopped down the front steps, with his red, white and blue striped crutch under one paw, and his tall, silk hat on his head. "Good-bye, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy!"

114 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Howard Roger Garis graduated from Binghamton High School and attended Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey. From 1896 to 1947, Mr. Garis was a reporter and special writer for the Newark, New Jersey "Evening News." His Uncle Wiggily stories first appeared in the "News" in 1910, were sydicated in 1915, and continued to be published for more than forty years, at one time appearing in one hundred newspapers.

Howard R. Garis wrote 35 volumes of Uncle Wiggily stories under his own name, as well as numerous other children's books under several pseudonyms. Among series Garis contributed to are Tom Swift (as Victor Appleton), the Bobbsey Twins (as Laura Lee Hope), the Motor Boys (as Clarence Young), the Great Marvel series, and books featuring Baseball Joe (as Lester Chadwick) and the Camp Fire Girls (as Marion Davidson). He also wrote "With Force of Arms" (1902), four volumes of the Rocket Riders series, and seven volumes of the Teddy series. His wife, Lilian McNamara Garas, whom he married in 1900, collaborated on several of his books including the Bobbsey Twins volumes.

He had a son, Roger.

Reviews

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have two versions of this, one being a hardback and the other an ebook. They have different colors. The copyright date is 1921 or 1920.

The book is a lot of fun. Uncle Wiggily is a 'gentleman rabbit' who walks with a crutch, loves adventures and helps everyone he can. In this book there is a series of adventures, each chapter involving him meeting a character from Alice in Wonderland. Alice also shows up quite often. He has two 'enemies,' mosquitoes and an alligator that is always trying to catch him and never succeeds.

There's also some neat puns. Paraphrasing one, when do you fix a strawberry longcake? When you have too many people coming and a strawberry shortcake won't be enough.

[J. Boo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncle Wiggily meets many of the characters from "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", who come out of their books to have adventures with that kind old gentleman rabbit.

This was started as a sidebar for DD2 (5) while I read the Alice books to her and DD1 (9) & DS2 (7). I think it actually did help her a little bit to grasp some of the characters and provoked a bit more interest.

The book then languished for a while -- it has been a tough year -- but we returned and finished it.

Uncle Wiggily is still popular with his remaining die-hard fan, but I suspect only for a year longer, at most. He has been a reliable bedtime story companion for the last ten years and, while his adventures are not necessarily the most thrilling for the adult reader (especially in some of their later incarnations), I will miss him more than I expected. I am getting unexpectedly maudlin as I type out this review.