Shelf Control #190: Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks

Wednesday, the 29th of June, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it–what its about, why you want to read it, when you got it, and such. If you participate, don’t forget to link back to Lisa’s page, and do also leave your links in the comments below as I’d love to check out your picks as well!

Today’s shelf control pick had me going into my stack (does it count as a stack if it’s e-books?) of public domain books that I downloaded, in the hope that one day…. It isn’t all that terrible of course, since I have picked books from this list off and on, but, my recent spate going overboard on NetGalley and Edelweiss has meant not really dipping into this e-pile at all. Anyway, my pick is from a set of children’s books I hadn’t read as a child but have heard about for a long time now, and one I had been meaning to try as well, Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Alfodo Best-Maugard (in the edition I have). Walter Rollin Brooks (1886-1958) was an American writer best known for this series of books featuring Freddy the pig, apparently ‘the world’s most famous pig‘. Brooks tried his hand at studying homeopathic medicine, dropped out, worked at an advertising agency, came into a substantial inheritance, worked in editorial roles, and then took up writing full time in 1940.

The Freddy the Pig books, a series of 25 stories began with Freddy Goes to Florida (originally, To and Again) in 1927 where a group of farm animals, among them Freddy the pig and Jinx the cat (I only discovered about the cat later, I promise!) decide to travel to Florida from their farm, Bean Farm, for the winter. On the way, many adventures befall the friends including bumbling robbers and a bunch of nasty alligators.

This series sounds a great deal of fun, and includes episodes where Freddy plays detective and even becomes a politician (I wonder if that was inspired by Orwell?). I enjoyed reading stories featuring animals as a child (still do), but somehow most of my reading back then was English children’s fiction, with a few American titles (The Wizard of Oz, Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Benden and later Nancy Drew) interspersed, and this wasn’t a series I knew as a child. The first couple of books apparently have Freddy in a more minor role, but I thought since they were available online, I may as well start at the er … start!

Have you read this book or any others in the series? Any that you’d especially recommend? Looking forward to your thoughts and recommendations!

Lisa’s pick this week us Don’t You Forget About Me by Mahiri MacFarlane, a light and fun sounding romance!

Cover image and book description as always from Goodreads as is the author information.