Green Forest Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) đź“•
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American naturalist and conservationist Thornton W. Burgess was the author of more than one hundred books for children; the best-remembered of these is Old Mother West Wind, which was originally written for his young son. Burgess also wrote dozens of books about the creatures of the northern North American forest, four of which are collected here as the Green Forest Stories.
This Green Forest Stories compilation focuses on Lightfoot the Deer, Blacky the Crow, Whitefoot the Wood Mouse, and twin bear cubs Woof-Woof and Boxer. Readers may have encountered these characters in other of Burgess’s stories about the “little people” of the Massachusetts forest. Burgess’s earliest ventures into animal fantasy are roughly contemporary with Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and Beatrix Potter’s tales of various animals, and represent the most lasting American entry into this genre.
Animal fantasy is a sub-genre of children’s literature in which animals are anthropomorphized into human-like characters and use language like humans. It is often criticized by those who want readers to experience more realistic representations of animals and the natural world, but animal fantasies engage a millennia-old tradition, in the Western canon reaching back at least as far as Aesop’s Fables; animal characters feature in teaching stories for children (and adults) in cultures around the world. Burgess’s stories are intended for children in the early elementary grades. The challenges and triumphs of the “little people” in his stories will feel identifiable to many young readers, and the snippets of moralizing and authorial commentary interleaved with the actions of the plot reflect a teaching device with a long history.
In the late twentieth century, Burgess fell out of favour with teachers and librarians. This shift occurred in part due to changing tastes in literary style and in part due to a changing society. Burgess is entirely a writer of his time. Most of the animals he depicts are male, and many of the female animals who wander into the stories are more passive and more stereotyped than the kinds of representation preferred for girls today. (Such is not the case, however, of Old Granny Fox, who may be the smartest of the little people Burgess represents and certainly does not lack agency or self-determination.)
The style of Burgess’s storytelling is undeniably old-fashioned but still deserves consideration. Although the writing is often simple and plain, there are rhetorical flourishes that reveal the author’s attention to craft. In particular, Burgess’s use of formulaic expressions such as “jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun” and “the Merry Little Breezes” links these tales to an orality that stretches back to at least The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer (think of phrases such as “the wine-dark sea,” “rosy-fingered Dawn,” and “bright-eyed Athena”). Through his broader use of repetition and through onomatopoeia, Burgess underscores characteristics of his characters’ real-life forest counterparts—the way a chickadee calls, a squirrel scolds, or a rabbit lopes, for example.
In these stories, as in the Green Meadow Stories collection, we observe features that signal Burgess’s experience as a writer for periodicals and as an early radio broadcaster. Each chapter begins with reminders about the previous chapter, and chapters end with either a strong, propulsive conclusion or a traditional cliff-hanger. The chapters are generally quite short—a comfortable size to read as a bedtime story, and just long enough to hold a new reader’s attention without demanding too much of that reader’s energy. The strong narrative voice sounds distinctly like oral storytelling. One can almost imagine a small group of young people seated in a circle at the storyteller’s feet.
That image captures the essence of these animal tales. They are light, bright peeks into a complex and beautiful world, a world any girl or boy may want to pursue through study or personal explorations. As humanity faces the daily loss of animal species, stories that delight readers and listeners, that encourage them to learn about and respect the creatures of the non-human world, deserve our renewed attention and respect.
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- Author: Thornton W. Burgess
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You never can tell! You never can tell!
Things going wrong will often end well.
The next time you meet him just ask Whitefoot if this isn’t so. Things had been going very wrong for Whitefoot. It had begun to look to Whitefoot as if he would no longer have a snug, hidden little home in Farmer Brown’s sugar-house. The pile of wood under which he had made that snug little home was disappearing so fast that it began to look as if in a little while there would be no wood at all.
Whitefoot quite lost his appetite. He no longer came out to take food from Farmer Brown’s boy’s hand. He stayed right in his snug little home and worried.
Now Farmer Brown’s boy had not once thought of the trouble he was making. He wondered what had become of Whitefoot, and in his turn he began to worry. He was afraid that something had happened to his little friend. He was thinking of this as he fed the sticks of wood to the fire for boiling the sap to make syrup and sugar. Finally, as he pulled away two big sticks, he saw something that made him whistle with surprise. It was Whitefoot’s nest which he had so cleverly hidden way down underneath that pile of wood when he had first moved into the sugar-house. With a frightened little squeak, Whitefoot ran out, scurried across the little sugar-house and out though the open door.
Farmer Brown’s boy understood. He understood perfectly that little people like Whitefoot want their homes hidden away in the dark. “Poor little chap,” said Farmer Brown’s boy. “He had a regular castle here and we have destroyed it. He’s got the snuggest kind of a little nest here, but he won’t come back to it so long as it is right out in plain sight. He probably thinks we have been hunting for this little home of his. Hello! Here’s his storehouse! I’ve often wondered how the little rascal could eat so much, but now I understand. He stored away here more than half of the good things I have given him. I am glad he did. If he hadn’t, he might not come back, but I feel sure that tonight, when all is quiet, he will come back to take away all his food. I must do something to keep him here.”
Farmer Brown’s boy sat down to think things over. Then he got an old box and made a little round hole in one end of it. Very carefully he took up Whitefoot’s nest and placed it under the old box in the darkest corner of the sugar-house. Then he carried all Whitefoot’s supplies over there and put them under the box. He went outside, and got some branches of hemlock and threw these in a little pile over the box. After this he scattered some crumbs just outside.
Late that night Whitefoot did come back. The crumbs led him to the old box. He crept inside. There was his snug little home! All in a second Whitefoot understood, and trust and happiness returned.
VI A Very Careless JumpWhitefoot once more was happy. When he found his snug little nest and his store of food under that old box in the darkest corner of Farmer Brown’s sugar-house, he knew that Farmer Brown’s boy must have placed them there. It was better than the old place under the woodpile. It was the best place for a home Whitefoot ever had had. It didn’t take him long to change his mind about leaving the little sugar-house. Somehow he seemed to know right down inside that his home would not again be disturbed.
So he proceeded to rearrange his nest and to put all his supplies of food in one corner of the old box. When everything was placed to suit him he ventured out, for now that he no longer feared Farmer Brown’s boy he wanted to see all that was going on. He liked to jump up on the bench where Farmer Brown’s boy sometimes sat. He would climb up to where Farmer Brown’s boy’s coat hung and explore the pockets of it. Once he stole Farmer Brown’s boy’s handkerchief. He wanted it to add to the material his nest was made of. Farmer Brown’s boy discovered it just as it was disappearing, and how he laughed as he pulled it away.
So, what with eating and sleeping and playing about, secure in the feeling that no harm could come to him, Whitefoot was happier than ever before in his little life. He knew that Farmer Brown’s boy and Farmer Brown and Bowser the Hound were his friends. He knew, too, that so long as they were about, none of his enemies would dare come near. This being so, of course there was nothing to be afraid of. No harm could possibly come to him. At least, that is what Whitefoot thought.
But you know, enemies are not the only dangers to watch out for. Accidents will happen. When they do happen, it is very likely to be when the possibility of them is farthest from your thoughts. Almost always they are due to heedlessness or carelessness. It was heedlessness that got Whitefoot into one of the worst mishaps of his whole life.
He had been running and jumping all around the inside of the little sugar-house. He loves to run and jump, and he had been
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