Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Old Man Coyote (Dover Children's Thrift Classics)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In another one of Burgess' classic books on the forest dwelling creatures of the Green Meadows and Green Forest areas, Burgess focuses on one character, in this case, Old Man Coyote and tells of his tales and significance in the animal kingdom.

One night Peter Rabbit unexpectedly hears a new sound, the sound of a howling coyote. This sound brings fear to his heart, as well as to many of his friends nearby. The new coyote soon reveals himself as a new inhabitant of the area; a new predator to compete with Reddy and Granny Fox. Fearing that Reddy and she won't have enough food with Old Man Coyote around, Granny tries every mischievous deed that she knows of to drive the coyote out of the forest. In the process, Old Man Coyote proves himself to be very smart and even fair.

This book is 71 pages long, in easy to read type and has short 2-4 page chapters which provide for easy bedtime reading installments.

Darien Summers, author of The Mischievous Hare, a children's book.

These series of books by Thornton Burgess were written about 100 years ago. They are delightful stories for young readers to expose them to the lives of animals. Very fanciful and not serious, they perk the interest of young readers that animals have social lives, have adventures and perils, and allow the young reader a feeling of intimacy with animals. My 9 year old daughter truly loves these books. We've found a big adventure together trying to collect most of the books. There are more than 20 of them, many long out of print. I believe this is better reading than the current popular books which are for teenage readers. Try reading these books to your 5 year old, a priceless time together for father and daughter. When she became 8 she began reading them for herself. No finer children's books for young readers.

I am reviewing a book Old Man Coyote. The author of this book is Thornton W. Burgess. My opinion of the book is 4 stars because of the different characters, and settings. I think that the settings are exciting because you do not know what is coming, and what is going to happen next. In the book there are animal characters, but they live like humans. They wear human clothes, but they do not live in the same type of houses as humans do. They are trying to solve the mystery of which the stranger is that is terrorizing the forest. The plot is that a stranger is scaring animals, and they want to find out who it is. Here are some reasons why you should read my book. I definitely think you should read this book because it involves things that people usually do not read about. I also think you should read this book because you might get shocked at what happens to the animals when the stranger is following them all over the forest. This book has animals that lie about how they feel about the stranger. Here are some reasons why people may not agree with me. People may not agree with me because this book is not what people may be used to reading. Also many people like books that have sequels to them. This one doesn't have any sequels. I think that if you read this book you might like it so I think just start reading the first few chapters of this book this book, and you might see that it is really good.

This review applies to the edition published by Dover. Unfortunately all reviews show up under all editions, regardless of publisher.

This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. However, the prospective buyer should be informed that the illustrations in this Dover edition are NOT by the original illustrator, Harrison Cady. Instead, they are very crude redrawings by another artist, Pat Stewart. They convey very little of the charm of Harrison Cady's work.

Some of the Dover reprints of Thornton Burgess books have original Harrison Cady drawings, but many are crude redrawings by other artists. The ones by Theo Kliros are not too bad, but the ones by Pat Stewart are disappointing.

To get real Harrison Cady illustrations of this title, you'll have to buy a used book. There were two sets of original Harrison Cady illustrations for this title:
-- Published by Little, Brown, with 6 full-page grayscale illustrations.
-- Published by Grosset & Dunlap, with 14 full-page B&W line drawings, including line-drawing versions of all 6 original grayscale illustrations in the Little, Brown edition, plus many smaller line drawings.

The redrawings in this Dover edition are of the 6 grayscale Little, Brown illustrations.

I recommend the Grosset & Dunlap edition. Cady did them decades after he did the 6 grayscale Little, Brown illustrations, after he had grown as an artist. Even though the Grosset & Dunlap line drawings are simpler than the Little, Brown grayscale illustrations, they are more charming. On the other hand, the Little, Brown grayscale illustrations better show Cady's remarkable vision for Burgess' creatures, so if you can get both, that's ideal. But either one is better than the drawings in this Dover edition.