Buster on the Farm

by Marc Brown

On his visit to Chicago, Buster makes a new friend and sends postcards back home.

Genres: Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Marc Tolon Brown is perhaps best known for his series of children's books about Arthur the aardvark, which was turned into an animated television show on PBS. Brown is a three-time Emmy Award winner, for his role on the television show inspired by his books.

He lives on Martha's Vineyard and in New York City with his wife, Laurie Krasny Brown. He has three children, sons Tolon and Tucker, and daughter Eliza. The names of his two sons have been hidden in all of the Arthur books except for one: Arthur's Tooth.

Reviews

[zapkode · Rating 5 out of 5]

{my thoughts} – This is a cute little book about Buster, the rabbit off the P.B.S. kids cartoon called Arthur. In this book he goes on a trip to visit a farm in Indiana. While he is away he sends postcards to all his friends about some of the things he did and learned. I believe that the illustrations match perfectly with the books story and that it is easy to read and understand.

I liked that at the beginning of the book it showed a glossary of farm words that were used in the book and that it showed statistics of the state of Indiana. I think that those two things were really helpful to have read before reading the story. They helped my child to better understand some of the vocabulary that was being used.

[D'Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a problem with the proliferation of "happy happy farm" books for children since most animals on farms live on factory farms in horrifying conditions. So that's my first problem with this book. My second problem is that the book mixes cartoon illustrations with actual photos from a real-life farm, and those photos are of such awful quality they look like stills taken from a 1980 home video. Considering this book is from 2005, I found that to be kind of strange. I do like that the book is supposed to be a series of missives from Buster to his friends and that it encourages kids to send letters and post cards. Other than that, this book is dumb.

[Elanor]

All by herself!