Freddy and the Bean Home News by Walter Rollin Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Freddy, World War II, and a Media War The tenth Freddy the Pig book, Freddy and the Bean Home News (1943), begins mildly on the Bean farm, with Charles the Rooster feigning a cold to make his wife do the early morning wake-up crowing and Freddy giving a speech to the animals of the farm and environs to make them do “their patriotic duty” by joining a scrap metal drive to support the war effort. (This is a WWII novel: in addition to the drive, it features a well-timed blackout.) When Freddy visits Centerboro to give a story about the drive to the town newspaper, the Guardian, he finds a new regime there: the wealthy Mrs. Humphrey Underdunk has bought the paper because she was offended when the editor ran a story about her luncheon party next to a story about Freddy’s birthday party, and some people confused the photos of woman and pig, so she has replaced the editor Mr. Dimsey, a friend of Freddy’s, with her animal-hating brother Mr. Garble. Freddy thus decides to start his own paper, The Bean Home News. Soon, the pig’s energy, writing ability, personality, and extensive pool of “reporters,” (including keen-eared town mice and a curious hen who lives with a curious woman who provide Freddy with more news than he can—or should—use) are helping his paper outsell the Guardian. Mr. Garble starts printing anti-Freddy, anti-animal fake news, and such is the power of print and Mrs. Underwood’s money, that she gets a law passed by which any animal appearing in town without its owner may be repossessed or shot, and Freddy becomes a menace to society, a wanted pig sought by state troopers and private detectives. Freddy’s friend the Sheriff counsels him to tell his side of the story in print, so he starts fighting back in his paper with the truth. Mr. Bean has warned Freddy that “Politics … ain’t news,” but when the Guardian targets the Sheriff (who’s so humane that he provides the jail inmates with ice cream, picnics, and games, to the point that they try to stay in jail after their sentences end), Freddy defends his friend to help his chances to win the next election. Will Freddy’s disguise as a little boy called Longfellow Higgins clad in a sailor suit really work? Will he be able to continue publishing his paper while in hiding? Will he win the battle for public opinion? Will Old Whibley the owl successfully defend him in court? Will the Bean animals win the scrap metal drive? Will Freddy resist the tempting offer of a job on the staff of Senator Blunder? Will he ever write a poem that does not feature a pig? Will he ever purr like Jinx the black cat? The story answers such questions with aplomb. The illustrations by Kurt Weise are a big part of the charm of Freddy books like this one. The pictures are clean and realistic compared to “cute,” anthropomorphized Disney animals. Although Weise depicts the animals doing things animals would not really do (like writing poems), he usually draws them anatomically correct. And he usually chooses good scenes to illustrate. In Brooks’ fictional world animals (including birds and insects) can speak with each other and with humans (though they try to remain silent around most people to avoid startling them). According to his moral system, anyone who feels superior to animals or mistreats or insults them is punished, while anyone who likes animals and tries to help them is rewarded. Pompous bullies like Mrs. Underwood and Mr. Garble had best beware… *Brooks’ treatment of the situations that arise when Freddy and his animal friends are or aren’t invited to certain events or permitted to do certain social things signal that the books may be read as a pre-civil rights era racial allegory with animals representing people of color (though I bet kids wouldn’t notice it).* This is a fun book written in clean, demotic English (the black cat Jinx is downright slangy) aimed at least as much for adults as for kids. It features plenty of humor (ranging from slapstick and bickering to quirky “facts” about animals and ironic wisdom about people), some porcine poetry, a media war, a courtroom drama, and a neat new character in Jerry Peters, a keen, argumentative, lazy loner ant with a miniscule pet beetle. When Jerry, “no fool,” explains why he wants Freddy to teach him to read, he says, “Because I like things that aren’t any use to me,” which makes the pig defensive: “Reading is the—h’m, the gateway to knowledge. It opens up the—ha, the portals of wisdom. It permits you to share the thoughts of all great thinkers of the past—” “Such as what?” said the ant. “Eh?” said Freddy. “What thoughts?” said Jerry. “What are some of these great thoughts? You read a lot. Give me just one great thought you’ve got out of your reading.” “Well, naturally,” said Freddy, “you can’t just offhand pick out one. There’s Shakespeare, for instance, whose Complete-Works-in-One-Volume I possess. Shakespeare is full of great thoughts—” “Such as?” said the ant. “If you want to know these things, learn to read and then read them for yourself.” Brooks uses Freddy and Jerry to poke fun at pretentious people who collect and push “literature” without understanding it, while ultimately telling kids they should read. Freddy’s conflict with Underwood and Garble over the newspaper and animal rights is amusing and pointed, and the novel has plenty of the usual virtues of Freddy books, being a fusion of whimsical talking animal fantasy, realistic animal behavior, exciting action, sophisticated irony, and social, literary, and human satire, but this one seems slighter than the better ones. Anyway, it’s a pity that although the Freddy books were best sellers in the middle of the twentieth century, they are not so popular today. Perhaps they are too literate while looking too childish? On the bright side, they are mostly back in print as physical or kindle books. I’m really enjoying rereading the several Freddy books I first read fifty years ago and reading the others for the first time now. View all my reviews
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