The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories: Volume Two

The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories #1

by Thornton W. Burgess, Harrison Cady (Illustrations)

A collection of stories featuring Buster Bear, Old Mr. Toad, Bob White, and other woodland creatures.

Genres: Parenting

341 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Thornton W. (Waldo) Burgess (1874-1965), American author, naturalist and conservationist, wrote popular children's stories including the Old Mother West Wind (1910) series. He would go on to write more than 100 books and thousands of short-stories during his lifetime.

Thornton Burgess loved the beauty of nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years in books and his newspaper column, "Bedtime Stories". He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column.

Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton Burgess was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They both lived in humble circumstances with relatives or paying rent. As a youth, he worked year round in order to earn money. Some of his jobs included tending cows, picking trailing arbutus or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy and trapping muskrats. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch.

Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time. But he disliked studying business and wanted to write. He moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he took a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written under the pen name W. B. Thornton.

Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died only a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III. Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his birthplace and spiritual home.

In 1960, Burgess published his last book, "Now I Remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist," depicting memories of his early life in Sandwich, as well as his career highlights. That same year, Burgess, at the age of 86, had published his 15,000th story. He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91 in Hampden, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Maryjane Nordgren]

tender, delightful, folksy animal-as-people stories for children - many tickle the imagination of adults, too

[Heather]

I got this brand new at a library sale for 25 cents. Yippee!!! I tried Burgess with the kids a few years ago and they told me to stop reading. Now, however, they are really enjoying the stories. The stories are funny and have great moments of tension without being scary. My boys are pretty ticked that all the animals are wearing clothes though.

We read a few chapters a day (a chapter is about 2 pages) and I'm afraid this book will never end.....Good thing we're enjoying it.

April 2010 - I gave this up. It was taking FOREVER to finish and the boys were quickly losing interest. I also wasn't so sure how I felt about everything being "Mother Nature" and not God.

[Kerri]

Our family has enjoyed these sweet, funny stories about some of Thornton Burgess' animal characters. The stories teach character lessons as well as nature lessons, but they are not preachy and certainly not like a textbook lesson.

[Martin]

For short, sweet, moral bedtime stories, we have never found a writer with stories as charming as Burgess' tales of the little people who live in the green forest and on the green meadows. Veronica loves them.