Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Freddy the Pied Piper<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n by Kevin W. Parker<\/p>\n\n\n\n WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don\u2019t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As you probably realize all too well by now, we are having a competition at the upcoming convention for best Freddy book ever. Aladdine suggested that we have photocopies of my reviews of the various contenders available as an aid to those who couldn\u2019t find the time to reread all the books. There was only one hitch to this brilliant idea: I had reviewed all of the books except Freddy the Pied Piper. Well, there was an obvious solution to this, so here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pied Piper has the distinction of being the only Freddy book that can be dated down to the day of year, at least the day it starts, which is, of course Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a Valentine\u2019s Day with three feet of snow on the ground, though, so no valentines are arriving in the mail. However, according to Charles, there is a rhinoceros. After Freddy gets over his disbelief and there\u2019s a lengthy but entertaining aside about Freddy avoiding shoveling snow by learning to ski (\u201cJinx \u2026 figured out in the time he had lost and wasted he could have shoveled a path through the snow six feet deep and three miles long\u201d), he makes his way down to the cow barn. And there he finds Jerry the rhino from the Boomschmidt Circus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jerry reports that times are tough for the Circus: they can\u2019t tour due to the war, and Boomschmidt uncharacteristically miscalculated their budget, initially thinking that they could take it easy for a couple of years but finding that the money ran out much sooner than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a nice bit of foreshadowing with a mention of Col. Yancey\u2019s treasure, but the upshot is that the animals decide to scatter and live off the country. After some months of this, Jerry runs into a very skinny and frustrated Leo, who has decided to hike north from Virginia (where Boomschmidt planned to stay) to visit the Bean Farm to see if Freddy could come up with an alternate plan. Jerry decided to do likewise, though apparently they took separate routes instead of traveling together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a pause while the mailman finally arrives and delivers the valentines, including Mr. Bean\u2019s famous \u201cI love you, by cracky.\u201d Then Freddy consults with Jinx, who has taken up painting, and they end up going to Centerboro. There they talk to Mr. Weezer but find that he is uneasy about loaning them money to help with the circus. He does, however, complain about the mice. Freddy has an immediate suggestion for that: put down some newspaper and put up a polite sign saying the bank will provide cheese if the mice will chew on the newspaper instead of the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, Freddy visits the sheriff and persuades him to take in Jerry as a sort of pet for the prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Freddy and Jinx decide to try to track down Leo by painting a picture of him (with Freddy as the model \u2014 another entertaining side bit) and showing it to the birds. Soon enough a couple of birds report seeing such an animal snatching birds off a feeder in Tallmanville next to a pet shop. So off to Tallmanville go Freddy and Jinx, with some help from Mrs. Church, who gives them a ride their and takes care of their lodgings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freddy learns that the town is home to many ownerless cats, and sends Jinx out to collect them while he checks out the pet store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll skip along here else this is going to take up the entire newsletter, but to make a long story short, Freddy and Jinx liberate Leo from the pet store and take him and the cats back to Centerboro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There Mr. Weezer is upset because the mice are eating more cheese than he can afford. Freddy goes into the de-mousing business, complete with characteristic advertisements, then uses the cats to clear the bank and his various clients\u2019 abodes or shops of mice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not surprisingly, the Bean Farm mice are quite unhappy about this turn of events, and make their objections plain. Old Whibley gets recruited to resolve the controversy and suggests that Freddy rent a hall or barn with the profits from his de-mousing and house the dislocated mice there until spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And here is where the title comes into play: Freddy does things with style, leading the mice (who had been briefed by the Bean Farm mice) down the streets of Centerboro while playing a tin fife and to the barn that is to be their new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, it\u2019s time to go south. They come across a racetrack toward the end of their journey. It\u2019s mostly for horses, but there\u2019s one race open to any animals other than horses, so Leo and Jerry enter the race in the hopes that they can win some money for Mr. Boom. Disaster ensues, but at least circus employee Bill Wonks atop Mohammed the camel wins, so Mr. Boom gets the prize money, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a side adventure as one of the race judges steals Freddy\u2019s money from Jerry\u2019s side packs, then Freddy plots with fortuneteller Madame Delphine to hide the money in the chimney, then have her tell Mr. Boomschmidt that\u2019s where Col. Yancey hid his fortune. Mr. Boom finds the money, notes in another humorous aside that it\u2019s almost the exact amount that the race judge stole from Freddy and that the dates on the bills aren\u2019t exactly representative of the Civil War. But he takes it in stride and is soon reorganizing the circus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story winds down as the circus makes its way northward, giving performances, and there\u2019s a moment of worry as the pet store owner goes to a performance and is about to claim that Leo belongs to her. But before she can do so, Freddy does his Pied Piper act, and she, being terrified of mice, faints, and doesn\u2019t recover until after the show is over. All ends happily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Cart says this is his favorite of all the Freddy books, noting Freddy \u201cat his ingenious best\u201d and the \u201chilarious complications.\u201d That is quite true \u2014 this is a book whose strengths are in the details, rather than in the overall structure, which is pretty haphazard. (I haven\u2019t even mentioned another subplot, that of the lovelorn duck Edward, smitten with both Alice and Emma.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it may also be the single book with the most poetry. I count six poems altogether, several of which are more than a page in length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are certainly some splendid bits in here: Leo and his vanity over his mane, of course, Phil the buzzard who loves both cookies and castor oil, and perhaps most of all the bizarre race involving a camel, a cow, a ram, Leo, and Jerry (who ends up going off-course \u2014 literally \u2014 and taking out the judges). But I find it hard to muster much enthusiasm. There are other books that manage to have both splendid elements and a coherent plot: Freddy the Cowboy with the Horribles or Freddy and the Ignormus with the brilliant set piece of the two pairs of Big Woods explorers mistaking each other for the Ignormus, just to name two. And Popinjay, while it also has a scattershot set of storylines, at least has a theme tying them all together. But I can\u2019t find one for Pied Piper. So I have to say sorry, Michael, I do enjoy this book, but I can\u2019t put it among my favorites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Link to Friends of Freddy Book Club Meeting – To Be Added Here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books Freddy the Pied Piper by Kevin W. Parker WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don\u2019t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you. As you probably realize all too well by now, we are having a competition at the upcoming convention for best Freddy book ever. Aladdine suggested that we have photocopies of my reviews of the various contenders available as an aid to those who couldn\u2019t find the time to reread all the books. There was only one hitch to this brilliant idea: I had reviewed all of the books except Freddy the Pied Piper. Well, there was an obvious solution to this, so here we go. Pied Piper has the distinction of being the only Freddy book that can be dated down to the day of year, at least the day it starts, which is, of course Valentine\u2019s Day. It\u2019s a Valentine\u2019s Day with three feet of snow on the ground, though, so no valentines are arriving in the mail. However, according to Charles, there is a rhinoceros. After Freddy gets over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3388","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n