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.
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, and the snippets of moralizing and authorial commentary interleaved with the actions of the plot reflect a teaching device with a long history.
Charming, old-fashioned animal tales perfect for sharing aloud with young readers at bedtime.
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