The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess

The Burgess Animal Book for Children Reviews

• 
  Darlene Nichols

  “Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don’t forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.” -Old Mother Nature
  
  I was talking with an elderly woman about the Burgess Animal Book and she was delighted to hear that we were reading it for school. She remembers receiving a Burgess book as a gift when she was a little girl, around Olivias age (8). I hope my kids will look back with fondness and happy memories of all the characters we loved reading about together this year.
• 
  Jennie

  Summer 2020 My children and I actually began reading this last July for Ambleside Year 2. This was one of our favorite texts and we enjoyed following up with each story by watching a YouTube channel that another mom put together of each of the animals mentioned. We got behind towards the end of the year and started listening to this on audio. We were able to purchase inexpensively through Amazon when we bought the kindle and added audio narration. We really enjoyed the audio narration and regret the narrator does not also read Burgess Seashore and Burgess Flowers.
  
  Summer 2022 read this for the second time with Lilia for her year 2. It was such a delight to share this with her and we are so thankful for a thorough but gentle education for all of our children.
• 
  Sara Hollar

  This was a *wonderful* way to learn about mammals. We took this book very (very) slow. It took us over a year to read. There were times we couldn't read a whole chapter in one sitting because it was too long. But if you let go of the schedule and just enjoy, it's amazing. We colored a picture, narrated some things we learned about the mammal, then watched a video on YouTube to bring the animal to life. It is a delightful natural history book!
• 
  Samantha

  My daughter has enjoyed reading all the Burgess Books
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  Camille Hoffmann

  Definitely a living book- a fun way to introduce your children to the many, MANY different creatures in North America. It covers a lot of ground quickly, so if you're looking for in-depth details of different animals, this isn't what you're looking for. However, if you're looking for an engaging way to help your children understand what a VARIETY of creatures exist in North America, this is a great way to do it. My kids chuckled at parts, and I definitely learned while reading with them.
• 
  Gina Johnson

  Fantastic book of nature lore pertaining to North American animals. Accessible and well written. I dare say I liked it even better than his Bird Book. (AmblesideOnline year 2 book)
• 
  Summer

  "Now we will close school. I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don't forget that, and never miss a chance to learn."
  
  And so ended Old Mother Nature's school in the Green Forest. One by one her little pupils thanked her for all she had taught them, and then started for home. Peter Rabbit was the last.
  
  "I know ever and ever so much more than I did when I first came to you, but I guess that after all I know very little of all there is to know," said he shyly, which shows that Peter really had learned a great deal.
  
  The boys and I read this all year and they really enjoyed it. I have to admit I liked the format a little better than Burgess Bird book but admittedly did not finish that book but I'm looking forward to doing it next year. We learned a lot and the boys always asked to keep reading!
• 
  Caterpickles

  Although I've posted this review on the readily accessible Dover reprint of this children’s literature classic, that’s not actually the version The Eight-Year-Old is reading.
  
  I generally love the Dover reprints. Most of our Burgess books are from the Dover collection. But in the case of The Burgess Bird Book for Children and The Burgess Animal Book for Children, it’s worth trying to find a copy from the 1940s and 1950s. Part of the magic of these two Burgess books is seeing Louis Agassiz Fuertes’ illustrations of the birds and animals featured in the story in full color. The illustrations in the Dover reprints are in black and white. It keeps the cost down, certainly, but it’s not the same.
  
  So while we have the Dover reprints for books like The Adventures of Happy Jack and Old Mother West Wind, I really wanted the Eight-Year-Old to read his longer nature books in an older version with color photographs.
  I had my copy of The Burgess Bird Book for Children from my childhood library already, and this past summer, The Eight-Year-Old and I stumbled across a 1950 edition of The Burgess Animal Book for Children in an antique store in upstate New York. The cover is falling apart, but it has all of those glossy full-color photograph pages.
  
  (Antique stores are one of my favorite places to shop for books for The Eight-Year-Old, btw. Every once in a while you can find a surprisingly good selection of now out-of-print children’s classics for $1 or $2, or if you’re feeling especially profligate, as I clearly was in this case, $8. But then, I’d been looking for this book for a very long time.)
  
  The Eight-Year-Old tells me that the Animal book isn’t quite as engrossing as the Bird book was. But The Burgess Animal Book for Children can’t be all that bad, because she pulled it out again this week to read for at least the fifth time.
  
  
  See the original post on Caterpickles.
  
• 
  Meghan Armstrong

  I grant that this is a living book, but I just didn't enjoy it very much. The Burgess books cover a LOT of ground, almost too much to really retain much. It was usually one of my daughter's favorite school books at any given time, but she had trouble narrating it. I will try something different for nature lore with my next student.
• 
  Rebecca

  Such a wonderful story to learn about animals in a fun way. One thing about this book, though, we wished it had pictures of the animals. Regardless, the characters are delightful and Thornton's books are a favourite in our home.
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  Karyn Tripp

  I am reading this with my 5-year-old animal loving son. We are having so much fun reading it. He begs me to read more & more. We have both learned so much from it & can't wait to read more of Burgess' books. After each chapter we rush to the computer to look up pictures & more info on the animals we learned about.
• 
  Megan RFA

  I read this book with my kid as part of the Blossom and Root homeschool curriculum. I hated every minute of it. Why are there no female characters aside from Old Mother Nature who is condescending and generally horrible? Why are we ascribing traditional human gender roles to animals? We both learned more researching the animals online afterward than we did reading these stories.
• 
  Heidi

  My boys love this and the other Burgess books. I take away a star for his annoying habit of making man seem terrible for hunting. 🙄
• 
  Katja Labonté

  4 stars & 4/10 hearts. I grew up on the Burgess books. <3 My mother read this one to me & my siblings for school and since then I've often reread it. This fall I read it aloud to my siblings--12, 10, 7, & 5. We all loved it! Some of this information is dated, but if does give you a good base of knowledge to build on, and really what it does (and what it is supposed to do) is make you acquainted with the animals of North America (she keeps saying 'our country' but she actually means 'our continent'... sigh). The animals become real people... your friends. And that's why I love Burgess' books, because it makes the animals LIVE. It's ever so much more fun to "know" Chatterer the Red Squirrel than just call him a plain old red squirrel. My siblings, as I said, really loved the story as much as I did and enjoyed learning all that information.
  Note: Throughout this book, the "school" is taught by "Old Mother Nature." I simply called that personage "Mrs. Burgess." I very quickly fell into the habit of always switching it to "Mrs. Burgess" and by the end I nearly changed "Old Man Coyote" to "Mrs. Burgess" out of habit! There are also mentions that the animals are "her children." I changed it to "God's creatures."
  In short, this is a well-written, entertaining, enjoyable read which I recommend for all children! And can someone explain to me why I tear up at the end???
  
  A Favourite Quote: “‘I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don’t forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.’”
  A Favourite Humorous Quote: “Well, Peter,” said she. “What is it now? Did you have a narrow escape on your way here?”
  Peter shook his head. “No,” he replied. “No, I didn’t have a narrow escape, but I discovered something.”
  Happy Jack Squirrel snickered. “Peter is always discovering something,” said he. “He is a great little discoverer. Probably he has just found out that the only way to get anywhere on time is to start soon enough.”
  
  
• 
  Sara

  I grew up listening to my parents read Thornton Burgess books to me. Now I get to read them to my son and it is so special!
  
  He loved this book and can’t wait to get the other 2 Books for Children about the seashore and birds! There is no better way to learn about animals than to read engaging stories jam-packed with facts and details about the different species.
  
  Copyrighted 1920 and here we are in 2021…pretty cool!
• 
  Nathan

  “I hope you have enjoyed learning as much as I have enjoyed teaching, and I hope that what you have learned will be of use to you as long as you live. The more knowledge you possess the better fitted for your part in the work of the Great World you will be. Don't forget that, and never miss a chance to learn.”
  
  Amen, I agree.
• 
  Wendy Jones

  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this to my boys for almost a year now. It's packed with great sources of information on each mammal of North America. I'll always treasure the memory of this book.
• 
  Jill Courser

  4.5 stars. Seems like Burgess books have to grow on me. At first I am always a little put off by the whole "lessons-through-talking-animals" thing. But by the end I really enjoyed this one and my kids (ages 10 and 8) loved it.
• 
  Boyschool

  Great book of knowledge
  
  Contains a fair amount of negative reference to hunters, which I chose to omit while reading aloud to my children. Still the book is full of wonderful information about all the mammals that live in North America.
• 
  Colleen

  A fun book to teach about the animals of North America. I did think it spent too much time on rats and mice, but overall we really enjoyed it. We liked to watch a short show about the animal and then read the chapter.
• 
  Alyssa Bohon

  A fun and engaging study of mammals for homeschool. The character of Mother Nature as the teacher is oddly ambiguous (is she a human? a fairy? no description), but the animal facts are clear and well arranged within a playful storyline.
• 
  April

  I bought this book and had such high hopes for it but goodness is it dry and hard to read aloud. My child was not in the least bit interested and dreaded listening to it. I'd like to go back and finish it since I don't like stopping before a book is complete but I'm not certain it's worth it.
• 
  Shane-Raina Bailey

  Great for young children, we listened to it over breakfast and lunch as an audio-book!
• 
  Colin Jones

  The best book ever!!
• 
  Kalaam Juarez

  I liked the stories and how they explained the animals.
• 
  Eliza Fitzgerald

  Charlie loved this book.