Green Forest Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕
Description
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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Just in front of Jumper was a little round hole. He gave it no attention. It didn’t interest him in the least. All through the Green Forest were little holes in the snow. Jumper was so used to them that he seldom noticed them. So he took no notice of this one until something moved down in that hole. Jumper’s eyes opened a little wider and he watched. A sharp little face with very bright eyes filled that little round hole. Jumper moved just the tiniest bit, and in a flash that sharp little face with the bright eyes disappeared.
Jumper sat still and waited. After a long wait the sharp little face with bright eyes appeared again. “Don’t be frightened, Whitefoot,” said Jumper softly.
At the first word the sharp little face disappeared, but in a moment it was back, and the sharp little eyes were fixed on Jumper suspiciously. After a long stare the suspicion left them, and out of the little round hole came trim little Whitefoot in a soft brown coat with white waistcoat and with white feet and a long, slim tail. This winter he was not living in Farmer Brown’s sugarhouse.
“Gracious, Jumper, how you did scare me!” said he.
Jumper chuckled. “Whitefoot, I believe you are more timid than I am,” he replied.
“Why shouldn’t I be? I’m ever so much smaller, and I have more enemies,” retorted Whitefoot.
“It is true you are smaller, but I am not so sure that you have more enemies,” replied Jumper thoughtfully. “It sometimes seems to me that I couldn’t have more, especially in winter.”
“Name them,” commanded Whitefoot.
“Hooty the Great Horned Owl, Yowler the Bob Cat, Old Man Coyote, Reddy Fox, Terror the Goshawk, Shadow the Weasel, Billy Mink.” Jumper paused.
“Is that all?” demanded Whitefoot.
“Isn’t that enough?” retorted Jumper rather sharply.
“I have all of those and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Bear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer,” replied Whitefoot. “It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always someone hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why I am so timid. If I were not as timid as I am, I wouldn’t be alive now; I would have been caught long ago. Folks may laugh at me for being so easily frightened, but I don’t care. That is what saves my life a dozen times a day.”
Jumper looked interested. “I hadn’t thought of that,” said he. “I’m a very timid person myself, and sometimes I have been ashamed of being so easily frightened. But come to think of it, I guess you are right; the more timid I am, the longer I am likely to live.”
Whitefoot suddenly darted into his hole. Jumper didn’t move, but his eyes widened with fear. A great white bird had just alighted on a stump a short distance away. It was Whitey the Snowy Owl, down from the Far North.
“There is another enemy we both forgot,” thought Jumper, and tried not to shiver.
X The White WatchersMuch may be gained by sitting still
If you but have the strength of will.
Jumper the Hare crouched at the foot of a tree in the Green Forest, and a little way from him on a stump sat Whitey the Snowy Owl. Had you been there to see them, both would have appeared as white as the snow around them unless you had looked very closely. Then you might have seen two narrow black lines back of Jumper’s head. They were the tips of his ears, for these remain black. And near the upper part of the white mound which was Whitey you might have seen two round yellow spots, his eyes.
There they were for all the world like two little heaps of snow. Jumper didn’t move so much as a hair. Whitey didn’t move so much as a feather. Both were waiting and watching. Jumper didn’t move because he knew that Whitey was there. Whitey didn’t move because he didn’t want anyone to know he was there, and didn’t know that Jumper was there. Jumper was sitting still because he was afraid. Whitey was sitting still because he was hungry.
So there they sat, each in plain sight of the other but only one seeing the other. This was because Jumper had been fortunate enough to see Whitey alight on that stump. Jumper had been sitting still when Whitey arrived, and so those fierce yellow eyes had not yet seen him. But had Jumper so much as lifted one of those long ears, Whitey would have seen, and his great claws would have been reaching for Jumper.
Jumper didn’t want to sit still. No, indeed! He wanted to run. You know it is on those long legs of his that Jumper depends almost wholly for safety. But there are times for running and times for sitting still, and this was a time for sitting still. He knew that Whitey didn’t know that he was anywhere near. But just the same it was hard, very hard to sit there with one he so greatly feared watching so near. It seemed as if those fierce yellow eyes of Whitey must see him. They seemed to look right through him. They made him shake inside.
“I want to run. I want to run. I want to run,” Jumper kept saying to himself. Then he would say, “But I mustn’t. I mustn’t. I mustn’t.”
And so Jumper did the hardest thing in the world—sat still
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