Bed Time Stories: Uncle Wiggily in the Woods

Uncle Wiggily #25

by Howard R. Garis

One of a series of children's books by the American author and creator of the character Uncle Wiggily Longears, an engaging elderly rabbit. By virtue of his accessible characters and engaging plots, Garis was the one of the most influential children's authors of his day. Many of his books, especially the Uncle Wiggily books, are still widely read.

Genres: Childrens, Fantasy

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Howard Roger Garis graduated from Binghamton High School and attended Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey. From 1896 to 1947, Mr. Garis was a reporter and special writer for the Newark, New Jersey "Evening News." His Uncle Wiggily stories first appeared in the "News" in 1910, were sydicated in 1915, and continued to be published for more than forty years, at one time appearing in one hundred newspapers.

Howard R. Garis wrote 35 volumes of Uncle Wiggily stories under his own name, as well as numerous other children's books under several pseudonyms. Among series Garis contributed to are Tom Swift (as Victor Appleton), the Bobbsey Twins (as Laura Lee Hope), the Motor Boys (as Clarence Young), the Great Marvel series, and books featuring Baseball Joe (as Lester Chadwick) and the Camp Fire Girls (as Marion Davidson). He also wrote "With Force of Arms" (1902), four volumes of the Rocket Riders series, and seven volumes of the Teddy series. His wife, Lilian McNamara Garas, whom he married in 1900, collaborated on several of his books including the Bobbsey Twins volumes.

He had a son, Roger.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Howard R. Garis began writing Uncle Wiggily stories in 1910 for a newspaper. And he wrote one story every day for the next 30 years! This collection of 31 little stories was written in 1917 and I suppose that after seven years Garis had decided to make his work a bit easier, because the stories feel much different than the ones in the two Uncle Wiggily books I read earlier this month.

Uncle Wiggily's Adventures and Uncle Wiggily's Travels were made up of 31 stories, just like this book. But those stories flowed together and felt more like actual 'big people' books, even though they were obviously aimed at children. The idea in this book is that Uncle Wiggily and his housekeeper Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy the muskrat are going to spend their summer vacation in a hollow stump in the woods. And every day Uncle Wiggily goes out walking to see what he can see.

So every chapter starts off nearly the same manner: our old bunny rabbit friend is ready to leave and the housekeeper asks him to go to the store for her or to take this that or the other object to various friends of hers. Doesn't she ever leave the house herself? And when did she worm her way into his life anyway? In the other two books Uncle Wiggily was footloose and fancy free, but then he
had been away from home the whole time, come to think of it. Maybe she was mentioned at the very beginning before he left home on his Adventures and Travels and I just don't remember her.

Anyway, the point is that these stories feel as if they are written following a routine formula. They are much less interesting because of that. There is also repetition from story to story. Not so much the same hungry critters trying to eat Uncle Wiggily like in the other two books, but quite a few stories were the same basic adventure with different characters. Two types of trees and at least one bush rescued Uncle Wiggily from the bear who wanted to eat him, for one thing. The only difference in each story was the errand the housekeeper had palmed off on our rabbit friend or the identity of the youngster who had gone for a walk with Uncle Wiggily that day. Most of the creativity of the other two books was missing here, in my opinion.

And I noticed something else that I don't remember from the other two books. Many times when the animals would speak to each other, Garis would write 'he said surprised like' or 'softly like' or even 'sort of giggling like'. I got curious and this type of phrase is used with 12 different words. I didn't count how many time he repeated the same phrase. But the fact that I was noticing weird little details like that tells a lot about the lower quality of this collection of stories compared to the others I read. I gave the book three stars, but the third was mostly for sentiment. I have a couple other titles I would like to read next year and I am curious to see how they will be: four stars like the first two titles I read? Three stars like this one? Or somewhere in the dungeon? I'll find out Someday.