Boy, does this bring back memories!
The Mother West Wind books, and a bunch of other Thornton W. Burgess animal books, were among the first "non-picture" books that I ever read. In second grade I remember we had a "read-aloud" contest to see who could finish a page of his the quickest. I remember the page began: "Danny Meadow Mouse sat on the..." Forty-eight years later, I have a hard time remembering the characters in the novel I read two weeks ago, but I have absolutely no problem in remembering the Burgess menagerie: Johnny Chuck, Sammy Jay, Blacky the Crow, Grandfather Frog, Old Mister Toad, and a host of others.
It's amazing that the little boy who loved to read these stories grew up to enjoy reading, say, the adventures of Takeshi Kovacs in "Altered Carbon."
