Welcome to Burgess Books:
Explore Thornton W. Burgess’s World
Hello, friends! Welcome to Burgess Books, a place where animals talk, play, and teach us about the world around us. Here you can meet Billy Mink, Reddy Fox, Peter Cottontail, and many more of Thornton W. Burgess’s woodland friends.
You’ll find book lessons, coloring pages, fun facts, and activities that help us learn about both the animals in the books and the real animals in nature.
So come explore the Green Forest, the Smiling Pool, and the Laughing Brook — adventure is waiting!
Classic Stories Meet Nature Study
Burgess Books brings the timeless animal stories of Thornton W. Burgess together with real-world nature study, animal science, and character education for elementary-age readers. Children can enjoy the original stories while also learning about the real animals behind familiar characters such as Peter Cottontail, Reddy Fox, Blacky the Crow, and Grandfather Frog.
The site includes free reading resources, animal fact pages, book-specific learning ideas, discussion topics, and printable activities designed especially for families, homeschoolers, and elementary classrooms. Each resource is created to help children connect literature with the natural world while encouraging curiosity, observation, kindness, and thoughtful discussion.
Whether you are reading a Burgess story for the first time or looking for ways to extend a favorite book into science and nature study, Burgess Books is designed to make those connections easy to explore.
WHO WAS THORNTON W. BURGESS?
Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874-1965) was a conservationist and author, who wrote over 100 books and thousands of newspaper columns over his lifetime. As a boy, he spent hours outside in nature exploring the woods and meadows near his home. As a young father and widower, Burgess wrote letters to his son who was spending time staying with relatives. In these letters, he included the bedtime stories that became the inspiration for his fantastic and lovable woodland characters that lived within the Green Meadow, Green Forest, and Smiling Pool. These animal books, such as those featured in Burgess Books, are filled with adventure, humor, and life lessons that have been enjoyed for generations.
Read more about Thornton W. Burgess.