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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But little Mrs. Whitefoot didn’t get out of his way, and do what he would, Whitefoot couldn’t get in. You see she quite filled that little round doorway. Finally, he had to give up trying. Three times he came back and each time he found little Mrs. Whitefoot in the doorway. And each time she drove him away. Finally, for lack of any other place to go to, he returned to his old home in the old stub. Once he had thought this the finest home possible, but now somehow it didn’t suit him at all. The truth is he missed little Mrs. Whitefoot, and so what had once been a home was now only a place in which to hide and sleep.
Whitefoot’s anger did not last long. It was replaced by that hurt feeling. He felt that he must have done something little Mrs. Whitefoot did not like, but though he thought and thought he couldn’t remember a single thing. Several times he went back to see if Mrs. Whitefoot felt any differently, but found she didn’t. Finally she told him rather sharply to go away and stay away. After that Whitefoot didn’t venture over to the new home. He would sometimes sit a short distance away and gaze at it longingly. All the joy had gone out of the beautiful springtime for him. He was quite as unhappy as he had been before he met little Mrs. Whitefoot. You see, he was even more lonely than he had been then. And added to this loneliness was that hurt feeling, which made it ever and ever so much worse. It was very hard to bear.
“If I could understand it, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he kept saying over and over again to himself, “but I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why Mrs. Whitefoot doesn’t love me any more.”
XXXII The SurpriseSurprises sometimes are so great
You’re tempted to believe in fate.
One never-to-be forgotten evening Whitefoot met Mrs. Whitefoot and she invited him to come back to their home. Of course Whitefoot was delighted.
“Sh-h-h,” said little Mrs. Whitefoot, as Whitefoot entered the snug little room of the house they had built in the old nest of Melody the Wood Thrush. Whitefoot hesitated. In the first place, it was dark in there. In the second place, he had the feeling that somehow that little bedroom seemed crowded. It hadn’t been that way the last time he was there. Mrs. Whitefoot was right in front of him, and she seemed very much excited about something.
Presently she crowded to one side. “Come here and look,” said she.
Whitefoot looked. In the middle of a soft bed of moss was a squirming mass of legs and funny little heads. At first that was all Whitefoot could make out.
“Don’t you think this is the most wonderful surprise that ever was?” whispered little Mrs. Whitefoot. “Aren’t they darlings? Aren’t you proud of them?”
By this time Whitefoot had made out that that squirming mass of legs and heads was composed of baby Mice. He counted them. There were four. “Whose are they, and what are they doing here?” Whitefoot asked in a queer voice.
“Why, you old stupid, they are yours—yours and mine,” declared little Mrs. Whitefoot. “Did you ever, ever see such beautiful babies? Now I guess you understand why I kept you away from here.”
Whitefoot shook his head. “No,” said he, “I don’t understand at all. I don’t see yet what you drove me away for.”
“Why, you blessed old dear, there wasn’t room for you when those babies came; I had to have all the room there was. It wouldn’t have done to have had you running in and out and disturbing them when they were so tiny. I had to be alone with them, and that is why I made you go off and live by yourself. I am so proud of them, I don’t know what to do. Aren’t you proud, Whitefoot? Aren’t you the proudest Wood Mouse in all the Green Forest?”
Of course Whitefoot should have promptly said that he was, but the truth is, Whitefoot wasn’t proud at all. You see, he was so surprised that he hadn’t yet had time to feel that they were really his. In fact, just then he felt a wee bit jealous of them. It came over him that they would take all the time and attention of little Mrs. Whitefoot. So Whitefoot didn’t answer that question. He simply sat and stared at those four squirming babies.
Finally little Mrs. Whitefoot gently pushed him out and followed him. “Of course,” said she, “there isn’t room for you to stay here now. You will have to sleep in your old home because there isn’t room in here for both of us and the babies too.”
Whitefoot’s heart sank. He had thought that he was to stay and that everything would be just as it had been before. “Can’t I come over here any more?” he asked rather timidly.
“What a foolish question!” cried little Mrs. Whitefoot. “Of course you can. You will have to help take care of these babies. Just as soon as they are big enough, you will have to help teach them how to hunt for food and how to watch out for danger, and all the things that a wise Wood Mouse knows. Why, they couldn’t get along without you. Neither could I,” she added softly.
At that Whitefoot felt better. And suddenly there was a queer swelling in his heart. It was the beginning of pride, pride in those wonderful babies.
“You have given me the best surprise that ever was, my dear,” said Whitefoot softly. “Now I think I will go and look for some supper.”
So now we will leave Whitefoot and his family. You see there are two very lively little people of the Green
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