The Burgess Animal Book for Children

by Thornton W. Burgess

When Jenny Wren learns that Peter Rabbit would like to know more about the four-footed friends who share the Green Meadows and Green Forest with him, she encourages him to speak with Old Mother Nature who is only too happy to help. During their "classroom" chats, she not only teaches Peter about Arctic Hare and Antelope Jack but also tells him about such creatures as Flying Squirrel, Mountain Beaver, Pocket Gopher, Grasshopper Mouse, Silvery Bat, Mule Deer, and Grizzly Bear.
Told with all the warmth and whimsy of Burgess's stories, this engaging book acquaints youngsters with many forms of wildlife and the animals' relationships with one another. The charming collection of entertaining tales is sure to transport today's young readers to the same captivating world of nature that delighted generations of children before them.

Genres: Science, Childrens, Nature, Animals, Classics, School, Short Stories

275 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

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

[Summer]

"Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don't forget that, and never miss a chance to learn."

And so ended Old Mother Nature's school in the Green Forest. One by one her little pupils thanked her for all she had taught them, and then started for home. Peter Rabbit was the last.

"I know ever and ever so much more than I did when I first came to you, but I guess that after all I know very little of all there is to know," said he shyly, which shows that Peter really had learned a great deal.

The boys and I read this all year x3 and they really enjoyed it. I have to admit I liked the format a little better than Burgess Bird book but admittedly did not finish that book but I'm looking forward to doing it next year. We learned a lot and the boys always asked to keep reading!

[Heather Gorsett]

Finishing this book feels like a good way to celebrate my 10 year anniversary with Thornton Burgess! I love all of his charming fables about mammals! He has such a delightful way of describing animals in detail!

[Darlene Nichols]

“Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don’t forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.” -Old Mother Nature

I was talking with an elderly woman about the Burgess Animal Book and she was delighted to hear that we were reading it for school. She remembers receiving a Burgess book as a gift when she was a little girl, around Olivias age (8). I hope my kids will look back with fondness and happy memories of all the characters we loved reading about together this year.

[Jennie]

Summer 2020 My children and I actually began reading this last July for Ambleside Year 2. This was one of our favorite texts and we enjoyed following up with each story by watching a YouTube channel that another mom put together of each of the animals mentioned. We got behind towards the end of the year and started listening to this on audio. We were able to purchase inexpensively through Amazon when we bought the kindle and added audio narration. We really enjoyed the audio narration and regret the narrator does not also read Burgess Seashore and Burgess Flowers.

Summer 2022 read this for the second time with Lilia for her year 2. It was such a delight to share this with her and we are so thankful for a thorough but gentle education for all of our children.

[Timilyn]

"I love Reddy Fox," says the six y.o.

[Gina Johnson]

Fantastic book of nature lore pertaining to North American animals. Accessible and well written. I dare say I liked it even better than his Bird Book. (AmblesideOnline year 2 book)

[Camille Hoffmann]

Definitely a living book- a fun way to introduce your children to the many, MANY different creatures in North America. It covers a lot of ground quickly, so if you're looking for in-depth details of different animals, this isn't what you're looking for. However, if you're looking for an engaging way to help your children understand what a VARIETY of creatures exist in North America, this is a great way to do it. My kids chuckled at parts, and I definitely learned while reading with them.

[Sara Hollar]

This was a *wonderful* way to learn about mammals. We took this book very (very) slow. It took us over a year to read. There were times we couldn't read a whole chapter in one sitting because it was too long. But if you let go of the schedule and just enjoy, it's amazing. We colored a picture, narrated some things we learned about the mammal, then watched a video on YouTube to bring the animal to life. It is a delightful natural history book!

[Kaitlin Otto]

I read this aloud to my children ages 4-8 over the last year for school and each of them considers it one of, if not their favorite book we've ever read. It was delightful!

"Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess, the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don't forget that, and never miss a chance to learn."

[Michelle]

This was part of our Y2 readings. Halfway through we began watching the YouTube videos that have the audio accompanying it- this was helpful! I was most intrigued by the Hooded Seal, the Wolverine and the Grasshopper Mouse. Loved that we could all learn something new! My son (who was a casual listener nearby) commented that we would now need to find a new animal book to read!

[Samantha]

My daughter has enjoyed reading all the Burgess Books

[Meredith Broadwell]

I read this with my kids (2nd, K, PreK) over the entire school year as part of Ambleside Online year 2. The older two loved it, which I think was helped along because my daughter read several of the novels over the course of the year and told her brothers about them. They picked up on some things like Peter always asking about animals' tails, how Reddy Fox is an enemy of all the forest creatures, etc.

I read aloud a section during meal times, the kids did narrations, and then we watched a YouTube video (the only part PreK was interested in lol). It worked well for us! Although this wasn't a personal favorite, I still give it 4 stars because they loved it and retained a lot of info. My daughter is slightly offended by "only 4 stars" and has expressed the desire to write her own review which I have promised to publish if she follows through.

[The follow-through is below]

My name is Marianne Broadwell and I am 8. The Burgess Animal Book is amazing! I have read other Burgess books and I really enjoyed the anticipation of waiting for when "Reddy Fox Joins the School." I had a great time hearing about "all the little people" and joined Peter Rabbit and Mother Nature on the next lesson every morning. I can't wait for the next Burgess book on the list! Hip hip hooray for the Burgess Animal Book! TW Burgess has great books for sure!

[Isabella Leake]

This was a very long readaloud project, which we completed, a chapter or two per week, over the course of an academic year, finally finishing (!) today.

I wouldn't put (probably no one puts) Thornton Burgess beside the greatest writers, and this book lacks the brilliance I could imagine it having. It is, however, well worth reading for a treatment of mammals in North America that is both comprehensive and comprehensible by children, and, despite an undeniable tedium and thinness of story, containing a surprising liveliness and loveliness.

I feel personally enriched to have read about all mammals on this continent, most of which I knew, vaguely, about, and some of which were total discoveries. Chapters on the marsh rabbit, bat, beaver, prairie dog, bear, arctic animals, moose, mountain sheep and goat, and bison were particularly intriguing to me. It was also fun to read more about the handful of animals we know well from daily experience — grey squirrels, chipmunks, cottontail rabbits, skunks, deer — and to gain a bit of a foothold in taxonomy.

All in all, a great book as an introduction to the animal kingdom, a superb school book, even if it's not one I would dedicate my free time to.

As a final note, the illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes are truly excellent, as detailed as a field guide but composed with more aesthetic and narrative sensitivity. (I think Fuertes is probably a better artist than Burgess is an author.)

[Marieke Desmond]

A surprisingly rigorous introduction to the mammals of North America but in story format for kids. Old fashioned but not too stodgy. Fun to read aloud and when in doubt, the villain / predator is always the WEASEL!

[Jessica Booth]

My children and I enjoyed the many stories of the animal kingdom in this read. We would read 1-2 stories a week, and the idea that the animals of the green forest were also going to school and learning was engaging to my 5 and 7 year old. The descriptions of each animal helped to paint pictures in our minds of what each animal looked like, then we would look up the animal in a field guide.

[Caterpickles]

Although I've posted this review on the readily accessible Dover reprint of this children’s literature classic, that’s not actually the version The Eight-Year-Old is reading.

I generally love the Dover reprints. Most of our Burgess books are from the Dover collection. But in the case of The Burgess Bird Book for Children and The Burgess Animal Book for Children, it’s worth trying to find a copy from the 1940s and 1950s. Part of the magic of these two Burgess books is seeing Louis Agassiz Fuertes’ illustrations of the birds and animals featured in the story in full color. The illustrations in the Dover reprints are in black and white. It keeps the cost down, certainly, but it’s not the same.

So while we have the Dover reprints for books like The Adventures of Happy Jack and Old Mother West Wind, I really wanted the Eight-Year-Old to read his longer nature books in an older version with color photographs.
I had my copy of The Burgess Bird Book for Children from my childhood library already, and this past summer, The Eight-Year-Old and I stumbled across a 1950 edition of The Burgess Animal Book for Children in an antique store in upstate New York. The cover is falling apart, but it has all of those glossy full-color photograph pages.

(Antique stores are one of my favorite places to shop for books for The Eight-Year-Old, btw. Every once in a while you can find a surprisingly good selection of now out-of-print children’s classics for $1 or $2, or if you’re feeling especially profligate, as I clearly was in this case, $8. But then, I’d been looking for this book for a very long time.)

The Eight-Year-Old tells me that the Animal book isn’t quite as engrossing as the Bird book was. But The Burgess Animal Book for Children can’t be all that bad, because she pulled it out again this week to read for at least the fifth time.

See the original post on Caterpickles.

[Meghan Armstrong]

I grant that this is a living book, but I just didn't enjoy it very much. The Burgess books cover a LOT of ground, almost too much to really retain much. It was usually one of my daughter's favorite school books at any given time, but she had trouble narrating it. I will try something different for nature lore with my next student.

[Rebecca]

Such a wonderful story to learn about animals in a fun way. One thing about this book, though, we wished it had pictures of the animals. Regardless, the characters are delightful and Thornton's books are a favourite in our home.

[Two Hearts Homeschool]

Finished over the year of Form 1AL!

[Janelle]

This was such a cute way to teach kids about animals.

[Elijah]

I’d rather watch Wild Kratts to learn about animals.

[Caty Thomas]

Not a huge fan of personifying Mother Nature, but it was a good medium to tell about all of the North American animals instead of just dryly listing off facts.

[Karyn Tripp]

I am reading this with my 5-year-old animal loving son. We are having so much fun reading it. He begs me to read more & more. We have both learned so much from it & can't wait to read more of Burgess' books. After each chapter we rush to the computer to look up pictures & more info on the animals we learned about.

[Megan RFA]

I read this book with my kid as part of the Blossom and Root homeschool curriculum. I hated every minute of it. Why are there no female characters aside from Old Mother Nature who is condescending and generally horrible? Why are we ascribing traditional human gender roles to animals? We both learned more researching the animals online afterward than we did reading these stories.

[Leora]

I was both surprised and grateful that, rather than being relieved that we’d finally finished this book, my seven-year-old daughter was sad about it. Despite sometimes complaining about having to narrate through it, she didn’t want the book to be over. “I can’t remember Morning Time without it.” Sweet, and worth it.

[Courtney Thomas]

IT WAS AMAZING! It tells about animals. I loved it.WOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

[Heidi]

My boys love this and the other Burgess books. I take away a star for his annoying habit of making man seem terrible for hunting. 🙄

[Katja Labonté]

4 stars & 4/10 hearts. I grew up on the Burgess books. <3 My mother read this one to me & my siblings for school and since then I've often reread it. This fall I read it aloud to my siblings--12, 10, 7, & 5. We all loved it! Some of this information is dated, but if does give you a good base of knowledge to build on, and really what it does (and what it is supposed to do) is make you acquainted with the animals of North America (she keeps saying 'our country' but she actually means 'our continent'... sigh). The animals become real people... your friends. And that's why I love Burgess' books, because it makes the animals LIVE. It's ever so much more fun to "know" Chatterer the Red Squirrel than just call him a plain old red squirrel. My siblings, as I said, really loved the story as much as I did and enjoyed learning all that information.
Note: Throughout this book, the "school" is taught by "Old Mother Nature." I simply called that personage "Mrs. Burgess." I very quickly fell into the habit of always switching it to "Mrs. Burgess" and by the end I nearly changed "Old Man Coyote" to "Mrs. Burgess" out of habit! There are also mentions that the animals are "her children." I changed it to "God's creatures."
In short, this is a well-written, entertaining, enjoyable read which I recommend for all children! And can someone explain to me why I tear up at the end???

A Favourite Quote: “‘I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don’t forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.’”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “Well, Peter,” said she. “What is it now? Did you have a narrow escape on your way here?”
Peter shook his head. “No,” he replied. “No, I didn’t have a narrow escape, but I discovered something.”
Happy Jack Squirrel snickered. “Peter is always discovering something,” said he. “He is a great little discoverer. Probably he has just found out that the only way to get anywhere on time is to start soon enough.”

[Emilee]

I read this book as a science text with my 2nd grader, and it was great. Every chapter is devoted to a different animal native to America, some of which I didn't even know about. In an engaging story you learn about the the physical description, diet, habits, habitat, and relatives of each animal. Though we struggled a bit with the bird book at age 6 (more my fault, honestly), my 7 year old enjoyed learning about all our country's many mammals in this book. The only criticism I have is that I wish there were more pictures, preferably in color. We supplemented with YouTube videos after a while though, so it all worked out. I recommend it to anyone considering it for Ambleside Online in particular, and to homeschooling parents in general.

[Justine Trokey]

This was a really fun way to cover the mammals of North America. Creatures of the forest come together to learn about their fellow furry friends and share their habits and characteristics. I was impressed at how the narrative lessons lined up with most facts found in the field guides. Some things were a little outdated since some animals have been shifted in their orders and families by scientist since the book has been written, but it was accurate more often than not. I did often break up the chapters as I read aloud because some were rather long, and it was easy to glaze over as a long list of mice cousins if you didn't break it up. If you are looking for a narrative take on mammal studies, this is a great start, especially for the younger ages.