The Little Fur Family [Library Binding]

Margaret Wise Brown (Author), Garth Williams (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1991

There was a little fur family
warm as toast
smaller than most
in little fur coats
and they lived in a warm
wooden tree.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Few writers have been as attuned to the concerns and emotions of childhood as Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952). A graduate of Hollins College and the progressive Bank Street College of Education, she combined her literary aspirations with the study of child development. Her unique ability to see the world through a child's eyes is unequaled. Her many classic books continue to delight thousands of young listeners and readers year after year.

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Muy pocos escritores de literatura infantil han logrado captar las emociones e inquietudes de la niÑez como Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952). Sus numerosos y ya clÁsicos libros y grabaciones continÚan deleitando a lectores y oyentes de todas las edades.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: Harpercollins (July 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060207469
• ISBN-13: 978-0060207465
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,028,809 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny. Even though she died over 45 years ago, her books still sell very well. Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading. She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them. She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper. Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. She had many friends who still miss her. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite, April 15, 2005

By 

Janet Miller - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Fur Family (Hardcover)

Despite a childhood filled with books, I didn't see this one until I picked it up in a secondhand store last week (at the age of 46!). I have read it several times a day since. There's something profoundly sweet and comforting about it, without the slightest trace of sappiness. It makes me feel transported the way books used to magically do before I turned 7, a rare thing indeed. Of course every child should have this book, but so should every grownup in this wicked world.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A psychedelic freakout of a kids book, October 21, 2007

By 

Mike Smith (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Little Fur Family Deluxe Edition (Hardcover)

This has to got be one of the strangest, coolest, most out-there kids books ever.

I mean, what exactly ARE the little fur family? The dad looks like some kind of furry owl, the mom might be some sort of feminine echidna, the boy looks like a bear, and the grandpa I'm pretty sure is an airedale.

...Pretty sure.

Sometimes the book rhymes, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes the writing is odd and redundant--like living in a "wooden tree," sometimes it's lyrical and beautiful--like "the dark and sunny woods"; and always it's just bizarre.

...The fur family seems peaceful, but they all wear fur coats, evidently from some other animals that got skinned. ...The boy meets his grandfather and has the oddest and most non sequiter exchange about sneezing. ...The little fur boy captures a tiny little furry man, before kissing it and sending it on its way.

What on earth is going on here?

The pictures, by Garth Williams of "Little House on the Prairie" fame, are awesome, every one suitable for framing, and the text, by Margaret Wise Brown, author of "Good Night Moon," makes more sense than say, "The Color Kittens," but still seems somewhat drug-inspired. And the ending is terrific.

This is one of my favorite kids books that I've ever gotten for my daughter, and she seems to like it as well. It's just so incomprehensibly bizarre that I have to love it. Have to.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only book that is as much fun to cuddle as it is to read, May 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Little Fur Family (Hardcover)

I discovered the Little Fur Family at the home of my piano teacher, who easily could have stepped from the pages of one of Margaret Wise Brown's books. (Maybe whispering "hush.") The teeny, fur- covered edition is the one to have, in my view. When it was reissued (I think around 1985) and I spied it in a bookshop, I instantly was transported back to my childhood. I bought it and kept it in a safe place for nearly 12 years, until I first read it to my baby daughter. I keep it in her her room, in its box. After we read it, she cuddles it until she falls asleep. Every page is a delight, from the hollow tree the family lives in, to the teeny tiny fur animal who gets kissed on his little fur nose, to the wonderful supper and lullaby the fur child receives from his parents at the end of a day in the wild wood. I wish that this book (and Goodnight Moon) were issued to every child upon birth.