Thornton W. Burgess (1874–1965)

Month of January 2022: Young Reader’s Classics

Not listed in the Accelerated Reader’s Program (ages 8-14 yrs, 2nd-8th grade)
A children’s classic originally published in 1922.

Thornton Burgess grew up in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he spent his time exploring around the water and woods and fell in love with nature. He started telling these stories to his one and only son. Then, he began a daily column in the New York Tribune. Finally, they were published in book form. His first novel, “Old Mother West Wind”, was published in 1910. They are stories that teach.

After reading this adventure story, kids will love envisioning what the crows may be thinking and doing next time they are out playing in the woods and hear them cawing. Burgess combines real characteristics of the crows behaviors with teachable moments for children…and the child may not even realize they are being taught because it’s the animals talking.

Blacky the Crow has two adventures. First, he has to decide just how important it is to satisfy his hunger for a couple of owl eggs. Does he risk his life and the lives of his friends? Second, is it worth risking his own life to warn his duck friends of the hunter who is hiding out nearby and coercing them into the area by putting out corn every morning, giving them a false sense of security?

I loved it! This would be a really good bedtime story to read to your young kids. Maybe a chapter or two a night. I’m thinking my two young hunter grandsons would love this. They have very imaginative minds. But I don’t think it will turn them off from deer hunting in the least. They love it too much.

READ IT FREE

Can be downloaded for free to your Kindle or read online at Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4979… (mere)