Uncle Sam's Furry Birthday Party!

 

 

Hi Guys!

I'm back with a little book review for you!  The title in question?  Uncle Sam's 200th Birthday Parade, by Irwin Shapiro and illustrated by Frank Brugos!   This was first printed in 1974 in advance of the American Bicentennial of 1976.  

If you're more than 50 years old, you probably remember the hype that surrounded the Bicentennial!  It was a huge deal at the time, both culturally and politically.  After all, we were in the middle of this cold war with the old Soviet Union and the Bicentennial was a great opportunity to brag about freedom, democracy, and how far you could get with those ideas in just 200 years!

That's pretty much what this book is about.  The premise is that all the animals in Forest Town want to throw a parade in honor of Uncle Sam's 200th birthday!  The parade will feature colorful floats that tell the story of America, from the Revolution to the present day.   

Check it out:

 

 

In true democratic style, the story kicks off with Mayor Bear asking the citizens of Forest Town to vote on whether or not they should stage this fabulous Bicentennial parade.  Naturally, the vote is unanimously in favor of it!  Except for that rabbit at the bottom of the picture.  Keep an eye on him and you will see that he causes trouble throughout this book.   

The animals immediately get to work building the floats while Mayor Bear sits in his plush office writing letters to Uncle Sam!  Turns out the Great Man is going to attend!  Mayor Bear looks like he's about to lose his poo-poo!

Uncle Sam shows up right on schedule!  The floats are done and the parade is about to begin!  Leading off are the Forest Town cops, followed closely by flag bearers and the town band!

 

 

Then come the floats!  The first is a mockup of the Liberty Bell.  That rabbit kid has jumped up on it and is shrieking out what it says on the bell.  The cops are still marching, so they can't stop him!

 

 

After that comes the Revolutionary War.  If those rabbits aren't careful, they're going to get ground into hamburger under the wheels of that ponderous float!  

The war's over and now it's time to give the nod to the Indians!  Is it just me, or is that rabbit being culturally insensitive?  Where the heck is his mom, anyway?

Westward ho!  Next are the Conestoga wagons and their cargo of pioneers!  This picture shows one of the big problems of many anthro universes, namely the issue of anthropomorphic animals and actual animals living side-by-side.  How exactly does that work?  

Here we've got the Civil War.  No mention of slavery anywhere.  Probably because it would be too hard to figure out how the Peculiar Institution fits into a multi-species anthro world like this.  At least those rabbits are behaving themselves, though.

 

 

I guess this float is about America's shift from agrarian to industrial values during the latter part of the nineteenth century.  

 

 

If you've got a booming industrial economy, you need lots of cheap labor!  That's where the immigrants come in.  Working in America's factories was no picnic, but I guess it was better than being a serf in Tsarist Russia or a dirt farmer in southern Italy!  

By the way, someone needs to put those rabbit kids to work!  Preferably at some kind of machine that regularly rips the arms off of inattentive operators!

No parade is complete without antique cars!  Looks like that rabbit is at it again.  Hey kid!  Think you can take that scooter of yours and slalom between all those old cars?  I bet you can!  They're super slow!  Go on, kid, do it!

So this is the last float in the parade.  The moon landing was probably the biggest propaganda piece of the twentieth century.  But even so, it was still pretty amazing.  Looks like the rabbit kid wants to ride in a rocket.  I know they jammed monkeys in 'em, so why not? 

 

The parade winds down with a procession of all the states.  Kinda weird that they would put Texas and Maine together like that.  I'm guessing that's Buc'ee carrying the Lone Star State's banner, but I don't know who the squirrel is.  Or why he's wearing a rain coat.

Seems Uncle Sam is pretty happy with his birthday parade.  I gotta admit, the good people of Forest Town pulled out all the stops for it.  Nice job, guys!  

And so the book comes to an end.  All-in-all, I kinda liked it, mostly because of the illustrations.  But I give the author credit for working in the educational stuff without dulling down the story. It's up to the reader whether or not they want to check out the factoids printed on the different floats.  If they choose not to, it doesn't hurt the narrative any.  

On the downside, it's pretty clear that this history is heavily sanitized.  Of course, this is a parade and you don't really want to celebrate the bad stuff.  And you gotta remember that this was written almost 50 years ago, during a time when the United States was under legitimate threat from a rival superpower.  Patriotism and unity were important then!  Heck, they're still important now.  All I'm sayin' is that you gotta look at everything in perspective.  If we don't learn from history, especially its bummer parts, then for sure we are doomed to repeat it!  

That's all for now guys.  See you next time!

Amy Carter rocking the anthro peanut look!

*******