Green Forest Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) đź“•
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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Prickly Porky didn’t step aside. He kept right on coming. He didn’t hurry, and he didn’t appear to be in the least afraid. It was plain that he expected Boxer to get out of his way. Boxer drew back his lips and showed all his little white teeth. Then he slowly reached out one paw and prepared to strike Prickly Porky on the side of the head if he came any nearer.
XXX Boxer Is Sadder but Much WiserExperience is not a preacher,
But has no equal as a teacher.
Sammy Jay happened along in the Green Forest just in time to see the meeting between Boxer and Prickly Porky the Porcupine. He saw at once that this was the first time Boxer had seen Prickly Porky, and that he had no idea who this fellow in the path was.
“If that little Bear has any sense at all, he’ll be polite and get out of Prickly Porky’s way,” muttered Sammy. “But I’m afraid he hasn’t any sense. He looks to me all puffed up, as if he thinks he knows all there is to know. He’ll find out he doesn’t in just about a minute if he stays there. Hi, there! Don’t do that! Don’t hit him!”
This last was screamed at Boxer, who had stretched out a paw as if to strike Prickly Porky as soon as he was near enough. But the warning came too late. Prickly Porky had kept right on coming along that little path, and just as Sammy Jay screamed, Boxer struck.
“Wow!” yelled Boxer, dancing about and holding up one paw, the paw with which he had struck at Prickly Porky, and on his face was such a look of amazement that Sammy Jay laughed so that he nearly tumbled from his perch.
“Wow, Wow!” yelled Boxer, still dancing about and shaking that paw.
“Pull it out. Pull it out at once, before it gets in deeper,” commanded Sammy Jay, when he could stop laughing long enough.
“Pull what out?” asked Boxer rather sullenly, for he didn’t like being laughed at. No one does when in trouble.
“That little spear that is sticking in your paw,” replied Sammy. “If you don’t, you’ll have a terribly sore paw.”
Boxer looked at his paw. Sure enough, there was one of Prickly Porky’s little spears. He took hold of it with his teeth and started to pull. Then he let go and shook his paw. “Wow! that hurts!” he cried, the tears in his eyes.
“Of course it hurts,” replied Sammy Jay. “And if you don’t do as I tell you and pull it out now, it will hurt a great deal more. That paw will get so sore you can’t use it. It is a lucky thing for you, young fellow, that you were in too much of a hurry and struck too soon. If you had waited a second longer, you would have filled your paw with those little spears. What were you thinking of, anyway? Don’t you know that no one ever interferes with Prickly Porky? It never pays to. Even Buster Bear, big as he is, is polite to Prickly Porky.”
Boxer sat down and looked at his paw carefully. That little spear, or quill, was right in the tenderest part. It must be pulled out. Sammy Jay was right about that. Boxer shut his teeth on that little spear and jerked back his head quick and hard. Out came the little spear. Boxer whimpered a little as he licked the place where the little spear had been. After he had licked it a minute or two, that paw felt better.
Meanwhile Prickly Porky had paid no attention whatever to the little Bear. He had slowly waddled on up the little path, quite as if no one were about. He was attending strictly to his own business. But inside he was chuckling.
“That scamp got off easy,” he muttered. “It would have been a good thing for him if he had had a few more of those little spears to pull out. I guess that in the future he will take care to leave me alone. There is nothing like teaching the young to respect their elders.”
XXXI Boxer Meets a Polite Little FellowBecause another is polite
Pray do not think he cannot fight.
The memories of little folks are short, so far as their troubles are concerned. Hardly was Boxer, the runaway little Bear, out of sight of Prickly Porky the Porcupine than his eyes, ears and nose were so busy trying to discover new things that he hardly thought of his recent trouble. To be sure that paw from which he had pulled one of Prickly Porky’s little spears was sore, but not enough so to worry him much. And there were so many other things to think about that he couldn’t waste time on troubles that were over.
So the little Bear wandered this way and that way, as something new caught his eyes or some strange sound demanded to be looked into. He was having a wonderful time, for he felt that he was indeed out in the Great World and it was a wonderful and beautiful place. If he thought of his twin sister, Woof-Woof, at all, it was to pity her tagging along at Mother Bear’s heels and doing only those things which Mother Bear said she could.
By and by something white moving about near an old stump caught his attention. At once he hurried over to satisfy his curiosity. When he got near enough he discovered a little fellow dressed in black-and-white. He had a big plumy tail and he was very busy minding his own business. He hardly glanced at Boxer.
Boxer stared at him for a few minutes. “Hello,” he ventured finally.
“Good morning. It is a fine morning, isn’t it?” said the little stranger politely.
“What are you doing?” demanded the little Bear rudely.
“Just minding my own business,” replied the little stranger pleasantly.
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