Customer Reviews

Talking Animals and Others

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Fans of the Freddy the pig books have been waiting for a biography of Walter R. Brooks for a terribly long time and the wait was well worth our patience. Michael Cart's bio & overview of Brooks' writings is a delight to those already in the know, and a gracious invitation to become acquainted with Brooks and the extended Bean family for the first time.

Mr. Cart has described the Freddy series as a "celebration of friendship" and I could not agree more. They're also feasts of good humor, civility, wonderful word play and poetry so darn awful it's good, especially Mrs. Peppercorn's efforts at slamming non-rhyming words into a rhyme scheme that leaves you in stitches. Like L. Frank Baum's Oz books, Brooks created uniquely American children's books/stories for kids of all ages. Freddy is an everyman, oops I mean pig- with the American ingenuity & curiosity to poke his snout into life's pleasures, muddles, and mishaps and always come out the better for it. The Freddy series often reminds me of the best of the American screwball comedies from the 1930's & 40's. There is gentle satire in each book and the villain's & their comeuppances remind me of Seneca's statement, "The way to be happy is to make vice not only odious, but ridiculous, and everyone to mind their own business." Freddy's use of a water pistol to squirt bad cheap perfume on the baddies is specially terrifying! Moral & civic lessons are woven into the books but are never heavy handed or preachy, but merely add to the fun.

Of course many people may know Brooks not from the Freddy the pig series but rather from the "Mr. Ed" TV series of the early 60's. The Brooks short stories concerning the adventures of the talking horse and his owner, Wilber were the basis for the TV series. But aside superficial appearances, there is little comparison between the rather sophisticated adult short stories and the mawkish TV series.

Not all the Freddy books are consistently great, as Brooks suffered ill health in the 1950's there are contemporary elements he attempted to weave into the books that simply don't work, usually with a cold war/political angle. But Cart provides a delightful synopses of the series toward the end of the book, demonstrating that each and every book has its moments of great humor and terrific memorable characters.

After a bad day, curling up with a Freddy book and visiting the Bean farm and the neighboring village of Centerboro is the best therapy I can suggest in this stressed out modern world.

Dedicated to James W. Mullinix (1952-1990) Freddy fan extraordinaire.

This isn't a book about "Freddy the Pig", it's a Walter R. Brooks biography that seems to cover almost everything except the topic readers are mostly likely to be interested in -- Brooks' talking animals. There are chapters describing undistinguished, minor stories long out of print. Brooks died long before the book was written, and author Michael Cart seems to be pandering to the warped vision of Brooks' second wife, whom Brooks married after most of the Freddy series had been written.

Finally, after 170 pages, tacked on practically as an addendum, are 80 pages of rambling blog-esque commentary on each of the Freddy books. One is hardly interested in irregularities in the number of chickens between books, and incredulous that Michael Cart feels that any of Brooks' poetry is above the level of dreck. (Is he kidding, under the watchful eye of the Overlook publisher, or just a cultural ignorant?) Given Cart's endless string of trivial and unfounded conclusions throughout the book ... probably all three.

An intelligent (and honest) college newspaper editor could have have done a better job. It's unfortunate that this may be the only published non-fiction legacy of a series that had a major impact on American culture for decades.