A good little read for your 4th or 5th grader! ( )

A group of farm animals decide to go south for the winter. I prefer the original title 'To and Again' as Freddy the pig is probably the most underused of any of the animals in this.

It took me a while to get into. It didn't feel much like a kids story, i kept having flashbacks to 'Animal Farm' which didn't help ;) .
One of the problems is that there arn't really any child characters. All of the animals except for the pig have the personalities of grownups which is why it felt a bit too grounded and the humour seemed aimed a bit older. Thats probably why the pig ends up as the centerpiece of the franchise as he's the only possible child-avatar available.

For a while things plodded along and i wondered how the author would reconcile the human world with these hyper-intelligent animals. Things came to a head in Washington DC in what seemed like pure satire but the author was now stuck with that strange turn of events and the book was the better for it.
Not much time is actually spent in florida and while my knowledge of the U.S.A isn't great i suspect there are some geographical errors here :) .
I also have to say that a couple of events towards the end would definitely have proven fatal (and smoke doesn't wake people up!) so if reading to a child make sure to point out how homicidal these animals are :P .

Overall a bit drab but there were wacky incidents that improved it as it went along. ( )

An assortment of farm animals on Mr. Bean's farm decide to migrate to Florida for the winter. The episodic chapters tell of their adventures on the way, while there, and on the way back. The animals are mostly perfect models of courtesy, honesty, respect and kindness. While most of those they meet on their journey are decent sorts as well, they do run into a few ne'er-do-wells.
This first book in the 26-volume Freddy the Pig series doesn't feature Freddy any more prominently than the other animals.
Old fashioned in some ways, but timeless in others. Elementary age kids would love to have it read to them, or to read it themselves. (And this adult enjoyed reading himself as well.) ( )

This first of the Freddy the Pig books -- Freddy (not yet such a dominant character) and the Bean farm animals decide to go to Florida for the winter. At this point in the series, the animals can talk among themselves, but they do not talk fluently in English with humans as they do in later stories. The illustrations are in a woodblock-art deco sort of style, very different from the line drawings of Kurt Weise which illustrate the latter books in the series. ( )

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R Brooks (born January 9, 1886, died August 17, 1958) is the first of the Freddy the Pig books. It was originally published as To and Again (like a precursor to The Hobbit, aka There and Back Again, but with barn animals). After the success of the third book, Freddy the Detective, the first two books were re-named to have Freddy in the title.

Freddy is a pig who lives with a variety of other barn animals on Mr. Bean's farm (no, not that Mr. Bean). The dynamics between Freddy and the other animals reminds me of Babe (the movie, not the book by Dick King-Smith). Frankly it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the makers of Babe took some inspiration from the Freddy books to fill out the ensemble cast.

Freddy while talking to a barn swallow decides he's had enough of winter on the farm. Migrating to Florida sounds like a grand idea. When he decides to walk to the Sunshine state, the other animals on the farm (including a pair of spiders) decide to follow along. The book chronicles their trip down and back, including some episodic adventures on the way.

Freddy and his friends are completely ignorant on what it will take to get to Florida or what to expect along the way. The fun, though, is in the journey itself. They see new things, meet new people and animals, don disguises, duel with alligators, thwart robbers and save the day.

To go with the silly text, are equally delightful pen and ink illustrations by Kurt Wiese. ( )