When I was a kid, we had a board game called the Uncle Wiggily game. It’s a basic “racing track” style game where players draw cards and follow the instructions to try to beat the other players to the end. It’s kind of like Candy Land but with anthropomorphic animals instead of gum drops. The board is illustrated with characters from the Uncle Wiggily story books, and the object is to be the first player to make it from Uncle Wiggily’s bungalow to Dr. Possum’s house. There are things along the way to help you (friends like Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy) and things that try to stop you (enemies like the Pipsisewah and the Skeezicks). Sounds cute, right?
Some time last year, I told my husband about this silly game and that I remembered there were also story books, though I didn’t remember much about those. So he bought this cool old book for me! It’s such an awesome little story book that when you flip it over, there are bonus short stories by a different author. The photo up top is the front of the book. Here’s the back:
On the basis of my board game memories, and fresh off the wildly satisfying and insane Mr. Popper’s Penguins, I decided to read and review The Uncle Wiggily Book. Author Howard Garis first started writing stories about Uncle Wiggily in 1910 and continued writing them for 52 years. For context, the book I’m reviewing was published in 1961. I can only assume that, so close to the end, he had run out of ideas.
I don’t want to be mean about a children’s book, but these stories are just so . . . boring. It starts out promising enough: Uncle Wiggily Longears is a rabbit gentleman, and the cast of characters includes neighbors like Uncle Butter, the goat gentleman (I’m seeing a trend), Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck boy, and Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, who is actually Uncle Wiggily’s housekeeper and, as far as I can tell, has no medical training. Uncle Wiggily likes to go on adventures, but those adventures essentially consist of him going out for a walk and having one of the local carnivores try to eat him. Seriously, every damn time! On top of that, he doesn’t use his brains to outwit the bad guys (bad guy being the hawk, the wolf, the bear, basically anything that eats meat). He usually just gets lucky.
I know I’m not the audience for this book, but I was really hoping for something over the top, not “Bunny goes out for a walk, bear chases him, something scares bear away.” Maybe parents are giving these stories 5 stars on Amazon because their kids fall asleep from boredom so quickly.
The only story in this book that got my attention for being sort of warped was the one titled “A Flag for Wood Land,” in which Uncle Wiggily introduces the little woodland critters to nationalism. He paints a BLUE house and a RED flower on a WHITE piece of birch bark, hoists it up on a pole and tells all the fuzzy citizens, “Hurrah! Three cheers for our flag! When danger comes, we shall gather around our flag. Then we shall be brave and drive away the enemy!”
When danger does arrive in the form of a hungry fox, Uncle Wiggily gathers all his child soldiers furry friends around the flag pole to fight the enemy. However, a couple of local puppies, Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, run and hide rather than try to fight a hungry fox. That doesn’t sit well with the rest of the group, who tell the shirkers to get their asses out there and fight like men or face a court martial. The pair feel badly about being so craven, so they come out and fight and help save the day. The only thing that could make that story better was if there was a follow-up about Senator Wiggily rooting out all the commies in Wood Land.
I can’t really fault a children’s book for not entertaining me any more than I can fault Barney the Purple dinosaur from being annoying as hell, so I’m leaving this one Unrated. But if you have a child who can’t sleep, this might be the cure.