Review of "Freddy and The Space Ship," by Walter R. Brooks

Review of

Freddy and The Space Ship, by Walter R. Brooks

Four out of five stars

 This book for young adults/children features a farm run by humans (the Bean family) with all of the creatures, from the pigs and cows down to the spiders and the flies, sentient. All of them are also capable of human speech, although the spiders need to crawl into your ear in order to be heard.

 Freddy is a very intelligent pig that builds a genuine rocket where the destination is to land on Mars. The farm is upset when the Bismuth family (they are relatives) arrives and begins eating all the food and taking up the best bed space. The Beans are too polite to evict them or to aggressively curb their appetites, so things are unsettled. The Bismuths create havoc for many other people in the area, so there is no one that does not want them to leave.

 The rocket is launched with a larger crew than expected, but when there is navigation trouble, they land on what they think is Mars, but is in fact only a short distance from their point of departure. This leads to a series of rather silly actions, including the trial of a cow.

 This combination of science fiction with the human-like creatures will amuse children, sentient animals are a staple of children’s literature. All of the characters, both human and animal, have their quirks, their normal is odd, unusual and amusing. The inclusion of the relatives that are guests that refuse to leave is a problem that many adults will relate to.