Tucker's Countryside

1969, 1989 Yearling edition
George Selden
Illustrated by Garth Williams
Tucker's Countryside
Original price $4.50, purchase price unknown
Worn hardcover with orange food stains
B-

While there are still moments I enjoy in this book, I find that it doesn't hold up as well as its predecessor.  I'd remembered it as having more plot than Cricket but in fact much of the book is waiting around for Tucker to come up with a plan to save the Old Meadow where Chester and many other creatures live, and where 12-year-old Ellen and the little kids play.  Chester has almost no role in this book, other than to disapprove of Tucker's "benign deception" of faking the town founder's homestead.  Even Harry is offpage for part of the story, after Ellen temporarily makes him her pet.  The new animal characters, including an overly reminiscing turtle and a posh pheasant are OK but not as memorable as they could be.  I did like the Milne-like touch of the "various and sundry" fieldmice and rabbits being called the "various and sundries."

Williams's illustrations, particularly of Harry, are good if not his best.  I will say that, other than Fern in Charlotte's Web, Ellen is perhaps his best drawn human.  (And, yes, better than the Ingalls girls.)  The book has an enviromentalist message (and a picket line "manned" by kindergarteners), without being heavy-handed, and Williams of course does well by the nature pictures, so different from the urban scene of Cricket.

All in all, worth reading if you've read the first book, but missing some of the original magic.