A Childhood Favourite: "Freddy Goes to Florida" & The Freddy Books

When I was about eight or nine, I pulled a battered hardcover off the shelf at the library and added it to the (most likely) giant stack of books I planned to check out. Over the next three years I read it, Freddy Goes to Florida, originally published in 1927 as To and Again, by Walter R. Brooks, over and over again, only stopping when I made my move from the children's section to the young adult and then upstairs to the adult department. About three years ago, I found an old library copy at a used book sale, re-read it and it has sat on my shelf ever since, tucked in between Anne of Green Gables and If I Just Had Two Wings. 

My copy of Freddy Goes to Florida is from 1966. The copyright page says it's the thirteenth re-printing. 1960's children's hardcovers were made to last. The cover boards are thick and the spine is strong, like an old Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. Like all older books, my copy has adopted that faint musty-paper smell. It's wonderful to hold. I'm reminded of many evenings and afternoons spent curled up in bed or on the couch in my parent's living room, reading and re-reading the story of how farm animals ran away and journeyed to spend the winter in Florida.

(an image taken of an illustration in Freddy Goes to Florida)

Freddy, is case you've never heard of the book, or the 26 others written about Freddy and his friends, is a pig. Other characters include Charles the rooster, Alice and Emma, the ducks, cows, spiders and a cat named Jinx.

A few days ago, reading a book about book collecting, I was reminded of Freddy Goes to Florida and the 25 other books which, sadly, I never read. I recall five or six more Freddy books lined up the library shelf next to Freddy Goes to Florida but somehow I never got into them. I remember trying, but at the time, none of them seemed as good.

So here I am, twenty years old, and I recently placed an online order for a very cheap used copy of Freddy Goes to the North Pole and Freddy and the Dragon. What I missed out on as a child, surely, I can make up for now? I have an image in my mind of 26 weathered, well-loved hardcovers lined up in a row on my bookshelf, perhaps with a shelf all to themselves. With a little bit of hunting, I'm sure I can make that image a reality. I like what I see.