Customer Reviews

Freddy and the Popinjay

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

 

 

This book was written just as Walter R. Brooks was hitting his stride as a writer, and is one of the better Freddy books. A robin friend of Freddy's needs glasses, and from there the story gets wilder. The book is great fun and, as in all the Freddy books, has some lessons to impart to the reader, one of them being that conceit is not only a vice, but a rather silly one. This lesson is taught, as always, without a preachy tone intruding on the story.

I don't recall reading Popinjay when I first discovered Freddy back in 1960 (or thereabouts), but I've just read the new Overlook Press 2001 reprint. This story features the familiar, lovable Freddy characters--and a few new ones--portraying a message that we all need to remember these days: Don't judge people by appearances.

In 1944, Freddy went up against that violent young lout, Horace Winch, and taught him to be a weekend painter (in "Freddy and Mr. Camphor"). But that wasn't enough! In "Freddy and the Popinjay," published the next year, he's out to reform the rock-slinging thug, Jimmy Witherspoon, and his tight-fisted father. The title of this one could have been changed to "Freddy the Moralist."

If you get past the unusually overt uplift, "Freddy and the Popinjay" contains much pleasant humor at the Bean Farm and environs, as well as a family of dangerous wildcats (who may also be misunderstood).

Interestingly to students of the Bean mysteries, the animals spend some time in this one waxing nostalgic over the days when those fine lads Biram and Adoniram were with them, while giving no clue as to where they have gone.

When Ella and Everett disappeared from the series, they left not a wrack behind. Adoniram, however, left his bathing trunks.