Freddy the Pig
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Freddy the Pig is the central figure in a series of 26 children's books written between 1927 and 1958 by Walter R. Brooks. Consisting of 25 novels and one poetry collection, they focus on the adventures of a group of animals living on a farm in upstate New York.
Freddy is introduced as "the smallest and cleverest" of the pigs on the Bean Farm, but he quickly becomes the central character of the series. Freddy's interests drive many of the books as he becomes in turn a detective, politician, newspaper editor, magician, pilot, and various other vocations or avocations.
Other major characters in the series include Jinx, the cynical farm cat; Mrs. Wiggins, the very down-to-earth, commonsensical cow; Leo the circus lion; Hank, the simple-yet-wise old horse; and Charles, the blowhard rooster. A recurring villain is the slimy but dignified Simon, who leads a gang of rats to nefarious deeds on the Bean Farm. Human characters include Mr. and Mrs. Bean, who own the farm, and various denizens of the (imaginary) local town of Centerboro such as Mr. Weezer, the banker whose glasses fall off at any mention of a sum over ten dollars, and Mrs. Church, who despite being very wealthy prefers to wear dime-store jewelry because it looks just as good as the real thing.
Brooks created his animals originally for To and Again (1927) (later retitled Freddy Goes to Florida). It took some time before their personalities -- and their ability to talk to humans when they chose -- were fully developed, but eventually Brooks hit his stride with such books as Freddy and the Bean Home News (1943), which strongly reflects a wartime atmosphere in small-town New York State.
In the remainder of the series, the animals of the Bean Farm lead a highly developed life, variously operating a bank, a newspaper, the First Animal Republic, and of course Freddy's detective business, which follows the principles of Sherlock Holmes as Freddy knows them from his devoted reading.
Much of the humor in the books derives from the self-referential way in which the author acknowledges the unreality of talking animals, unlike other children's works in which they are accepted as normal. The Bean Farm animals have attained national fame for their ability to talk and read, and the humans they encounter are taken aback at first (though only momentarily) to find themselves conversing with animals.
Despite their being quite popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the books went out of fashion and out of print in the 1960s, although children's departments in some fortunate libraries continued to make them available. In the past decade they have been republished by Overlook Press, in response to plaintive requests from Freddy fans who remember the books from childhood and treasure their combination of ingenious plots, well-drawn characters, literary allusions, and wholesome (but not cloying) moral lessons. Adam Hochschild, writing in The New York Times Book Review, describes the series as "the moral center of my childhood universe."
[edit] List of Freddy books in chronological order
These are all 26 titles in the Freddy the Pig series listed in their order of publication. The titles given are those of the current published editions. Some of them have alternate titles, which are included in parentheses.
- Freddy Goes to Florida, 1927 (To and Again) LCCN 2001-016049
- Freddy Goes to the North Pole, 1930 (More To and Again) LCCN 00-050151
- Freddy the Detective, 1932
- The Story of Freginald, 1936 (Freddy and Freginald)
- The Clockwork Twin, 1937 (Freddy and the Clockwork Twin)
- Freddy the Politician, 1939 (Wiggins for President) LCCN 00-042230
- Freddy's Cousin Weedly, 1940
- Freddy and the Ignormus, 1941
- Freddy and the Perilous Adventure, 1942
- Freddy and the Bean Home News, 1943 LCCN 2001-048438
- Freddy and Mr. Camphor, 1944
- Freddy and the Popinjay, 1945
- Freddy the Pied Piper, 1946
- Freddy the Magician, 1947
- Freddy Goes Camping, 1948
- Freddy Plays Football, 1949
- Freddy the Cowboy, 1950
- Freddy Rides Again, 1951
- Freddy the Pilot, 1952
- Freddy and the Spaceship, 1953 LCCN 2001-048439
- The Collected Poems of Freddy the Pig, 1953 LCCN 2001-021064
- Freddy and the Men from Mars, 1954 LCCN 2002-511933
- Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars, 1955
- Freddy and Simon the Dictator, 1956
- Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans, 1957
- Freddy and the Dragon, 1958
