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Whitman Novels, Big Little Books, and Others |
- Lassie and the Mystery at Blackberry Bog
- Dorothea J. Snow
«« original cover
It's spring and Jeff is desperate to earn money to buy a new English racer bike like his rich friend Harry's. Gramps, upset that he cannot give his grandson all the things he wants, hands over care of the farm strawberry bed to Jeff, telling him he can keep any profits from the sale of the berries. Jeff also earns cash by picking blackberries at a nearby, treacherous bog. He finds a good customer for the fruit in the person of the owner of a new motel/restaurant, but can't figure out the man's son, Butch, who seems to be afraid of Lassie! And if he hadn't enough to do, he's also trying to rescue an abused dog belonging to a nasty neighbor.
later, 1960s cover »»
Like most of the early Whitman kids' books, this one is chock-full of non-lethal adventures (although the idea of letting pre-teen kids go picking berries next to such a treacherous swamp would probably make modern parents blanch). Introduces some characters that were not in the television series, like Harry and Butch, and has Jeff associating with schoolmates—including girls!—which gives him more of a well-rounded social life than just wandering around with Lassie all the time.
- Lassie and the Secret of the Summer
- Dorothea J. Snow
«« original cover
It's time for summer vacation, and Jeff's after money again—this time to buy himself a record player so he can listen to records by his favorite singer, Dan Dawson—but his money-making schemes come to an abrupt halt when Gramps severely injures his back, and then the pump to the well breaks down. To Gramps' horror, Ellen decides to takes in visitors who want to spend their vacation on the farm, and gives Jeff an opportunity to earn some money by helping with extra chores and entertaining the guests. Jeff views the vacationers as just so much more work, but to his surprise he makes some fast new friends.
later, 1960s cover »»
There's a nice variety of guests who come to the farm, but the biggest surprise comes from Jeff's dad's old "Victrola" record collection. See if you can figure out why Lassie's special record is so special before the truth is revealed.
- Lassie: Forbidden Valley
- Doris Schroeder
Timmy and Lassie make three new friends: Letty, a
slightly spoiled but sweet city child whose parents have just bought a
broken-down old farm in the neighborhood; Letty's pet poodle, who
seems to have a genius for getting into trouble in the country; and
a reclusive old man who calls himself "Joey" and who is
living in a cave in the forest. Unbeknownst to anyone else, however,
there's also an escaped convict in the area who has the elderly
recluse convinced he's a wanted man.
Convicts, floods, escaped ponies, the lot. One wishes one's life was as adventurous as Timmy's. They also mention the topic of Timmy's adoption in this story, which seems to have been written with Shepodd/Leachman in mind in the parents' roles.
- Lassie: Treasure Hunter
- Charles S. Strong
While on a hike in a nearby mountain area, Timmy and Boomer
find evidence of past Indian habitation, leading the Martins to call a
museum expert to come to the area to investigate the historical
memorabilia. In the meantime, Lassie runs afoul of bank robbers
who are also using the mountain as a hideout for their loot.
Whew. The bank robbers just happen to do something that gets Lassie suspicious of them and hide their loot in the same area with the fossils—and even with those coincidences this is still a slow-moving novel. Some of the dialog is pretty bad, too, with Timmy speaking like he's a teenage geek instead of an eight-year- old kid.
- Lassie: The Wild Mountain Trail
- I.G. Edmonds
When young Paul Carter returns to his
hometown of Black Rock from school, he discovers that his good
friend since his father's death, an elderly prospector named "Hardrock"
Hartley, has suffered a head injury and is now living up in the
mountains as an aggressive recluse. Paul is determined to find
Hardrock and get him back to the hospital before the effects of his
injury kill him. Meanwhile Corey and the rangers battle a firebug—whom
everyone suspects is Hardrock.
Earthquakes, forest fires, amnesia-stricken men who think they're being accused of a crime they didn't commit—Paul gets in more trouble than either Jeff or Timmy could have imagined. Hank Whitfield, Corey's partner in the first season of ranger stories, is featured in this novel.
- Lassie and the Mystery of Bristlecone Pine
- Steve Frazee
Corey and Lassie are given
temporary custody of the 12-year-old runaway they discovered who
says his name is "Bristlecone Pine," while they cope with loggers,
a group of trail motorcyclists called the Red Devils, and
quarrelling ranchers in the Sleepy Cat National Forest.
Frazee, who did the remainder of the Lassie Whitman novels, managed to impart a lot of the mission of the Forest Service into his stories without getting too boring. This one's the best of the bunch, with the mystery of "Briss" unfolding slowly. If you ever wonder how Corey got all his paperwork done when he was so busy wandering after Lassie, we meet his secretary Billie Sanderson here.
- Lassie and the Secret of the Smelter's Cave
- Steve Frazee
While Corey plays
diplomat—and then detective when he turns up some mysterious
secrets—while surveying disputed property (the Forest Service is
planning to open up a forest area for logging and camping, but the
neighboring people, including an imperious senator with clout, don't
want their privacy disturbed), Lassie and two local boys, Billy Kent
and Pete Sandoval, search for the legendary Don Madrid, a Spanish
smelter's cave from the 18th century that's reputed to still hold gold.
A story that definitely needs more action and less talking, although the political infighting isn't as intrusive as it might have been. The story includes a very positive Hispanic character, quite a rarity in the late 60s.
- Lassie: Lost in the Snow
- Steve Frazee
Scott Turner and Lassie visit snow
country, the Wapiti National Forest, where they investigate the
intrusion and damage the new sport of snowmobiling is causing
in the forest area. Scott, a novice to the sport, doesn't want
to clamp down on snowmobilers, but he finds their advent has caused
animal deaths, winter forest fires, burglaries, and poaching in this
once peaceful area. The obligatory kids in this outing are hot-dogging
snowmobiling twins Bob and Ted Pettigrew (accompanied by their husky Chinook);
it is Ted who turns the tide for safety measures when he is trapped
in an avalanche.
A nice change of pace on Lassie novel locations, this one could have done with a little less lecturing about the dangers of winter sports, especially snowmobiling and how to manage people who use them unwisely.
- Lassie: Trouble at Panter's Lake
- Steve Frazee
Tom Dennison and Kevin Adkins, their
spaniel Dude, and two neighborhood "hippies" named Bill and Chan
find Lassie dehydrated and dying from snakebite after her escape
from a junkyard. When she is well, she helps the boys and the young
men—whom the neighborhood occupants don't like very much—save
Panter's Lake, a veritable wildlife sanctuary, from being
bulldozed and turned into an exclusive housing development and
shopping center.
The writers who did the "Lassie on her own" TV adventures could have taken a leaf of advice from this book; it stays "relevant" without being downright boring, although the "hippie" subplot really dates it.
- Lassie: Adventure in Alaska
- George S. Elrick
While surveying Alaskan sites for new wilderness
areas, Corey is injured after an earthquake; the earth tremor also exposes a
mammoth's body. But the thawing meat forms a threat to the incapacitated ranger when it starts attracting predators, including a vicious wolverine who has been
stalking the ranger and the collie from the start.
When Whitman Books revived the old "Big Little Books" in the late sixties, one of the first issued was this miniature Lassie novel. All Big Little Books followed a formula of a 4 inch by 5 inch format with an illustration every other page. Early ones were hardcovered, the later issued in paperback; plus early illos were in full color, later ones black and white sketches.
- Lassie and the Shabby Sheik
- George S. Elrick
It's Lassie versus sandstorms, camels, and a untrustworthy outlaw nicknamed "the Shabby Sheik" when she and Corey visit
Heartbreak Ranch—but the location is not anywhere in the Mideast! Instead
ranger and collie meet kangaroos, koalas, and the remenants of the Camel
Patrol while in the wilds of the Australian bush country for
three months investigating the local hardwood trees and giving advice
against flash flood barriers.
Lassie does the Crocodile Dundee thing long before Paul Hogan was a glimmer in any moviemaker's eye. Unfortunately the aborigine bits seem a bit patronizing today.
- Lassie: Old One Eye
- George S. Elrick
Lassie and Ranger Bob Carlson are in Washington's Cascade Mountains with local resident Frank Savage, a professor investigating the possible existance of the Sasquatch, and his small twin sons Jimmy and Johnny when trouble strikes: the boys wander away and are stalked by a renegade bear.
One wonders why "Ranger Bob" in this novel was not Bob Ericson of the television series, although by the time this book came along that continuity had been lost. The color illos are much missed, and the twins are absolutely too cute for words.
I planned to put only the Whitman novels and Big Little Books on this page, but so many people have asked or told me about other Lassie books that I thought I'd make a "short list" of them in alphabetical order, plus two "series" at the very end.
- The Adventures of Lassie, (Golden Book which includes Lassie and Her Day in the Sun, Lassie and the Daring Rescue, and Lassie Shows the Way)
- Forest Ranger Handbook (by Corey Stuart and Lassie, 19 page pamphlet, 1967)
- Hooray for Lassie! (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, with Timmy, 1964)
- Lassie (Sheila Black, novelization of 1994 movie, paperback)
- Lassie: A Dog's Life—the First 50 Years (trade paper, Ace Collins, 191 pages)
- Lassie and Her Day in the Sun (Little Golden Book, 1958)
- Lassie and Her Friends (Golden Shape Book, 1976)
- Lassie and the Big Clean Up Day (Little Golden Book, 1979)
- Lassie and the Cub Scout (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, with Timmy, 1964)
- Lassie and the Daring Rescue (Little Golden Book)
- Lassie and the Deer Mystery (1966, Whitman Big Tell-A-Tale)
- Lassie and the Firefighters (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, 1968)
- Lassie and the Kittens (Whitman Tell-A-Tale)
- Lassie and the Lost Explorer (Golden Press, 1960)
- Lassie and the Lost Little Sheep (Pop-Up Book, Seafarer Books, 1994)
- Lassie and the Secret Friend (Big Golden Book, with Bob Ericson, 1972)
- Lassie Come-Home (various editions, Eric Knight, 1943)
- Lassie Come-Home (Grosset Grow-Up Book, adapted for young readers by Felix Sutton, 1975)
- Lassie Come-Home (Picture book by Rosemary Wells and Susan Jeffers)
- Lassie Finds a Friend (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, 1960)
- "Lassie Method," The (Rudd Weatherwax, hardback, training manual, 1971)
- Lassie's Brave Adventure (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, with Jeff, 1958)
- Lassie's Forest Adventure - A Story to Touch and Feel, (Stephanie S. Pierre, 1994)
- Lassie's Guide to a Family's Best Friend; Raising the Family Dog (Ace Collins; this isn't a Lassie book, but about caring and training for a dog, but has photos of Lassie in it)
- Lassie's Long Trip (1957 Wonder Book, children's version of Lassie Come Home)
- Lassie Shows the Way (Little Golden Book, 1956)
- Lassie: The Busy Morning (Whitman Tell-A-Tale, 1973)
- Lassie: The Great Escape (Diane Muldrow, Little Golden Book, 1998, Animal Planet Lassie series)
- Lassie: The Sandbar Rescue (1964; Whitman Top Top Tales)
- Magic of Lassie, The, Robert Weverka (1978 paperback, novelization of movie)
- MGM's Lassie: Rescue in the Storm (Whitman Cozy Corner Book, 1951)
- Painted Hills, The, (looks like a British or Australian novelization of the movie, advertised as being with "4 colour plates and 80 photographs," would be 1950s)
- Story of Lassie, The by John H. Rothwell and Rudd B. Weatherwax, hardback, 192 pages, 1950)
- Marian Bray books (these are books from a Christian publishing company featuring Lassie with two children named Sarah and Jimmy, Chariot Victor Publishers, mid-1990s)
- Lassie to the Rescue
- Lassie: Hayloft Hideout
- Lassie Under the Big Top
- Lassie: Treasure at Eagle Mountain
- Lassie: Danger at Echo Cliffs
- Nancy E. Krulik books (based on stories telecast on The New Lassie)
- Lassie: The Puppy Problem
- Lassie: Digging Up Danger (1989; adapted from the episode "The Pot Hunters")
- Lassie: The Big Blowup
- Lassie: Water Watchdog
- Lassie: Skateboard Dare (combination of two episodes, "Skateboard Stunt" and "Danger Zone")
- Lassie: Dangerous Party
Lassie: A Christmas Story
In conjunction with the Animal Planet series, a Lassie children's book by Earl Hamner Jr (The Waltons) and Don Sipes was released in 1997, relating the collie's involvement in the Christmas celebration. The story is an odd mixture of the 1990s Animal Planet series and the classic version: Although Timmy and Lassie are living in Hudson Falls, Vermont, as in the new series, and Timmy's mom is a veterinarian, Timmy's mom is Ruth Martin, not Karen Cabot, as in the new series, and the illustrations of Timmy and Ruth look exactly like Jon Provost and June Lockhart. Ruth's old friend from school is neither Ethan Bennett as in the new series nor someone named Paul, but a man named Andrew, and a character not in either series, Grandpa Martin, appears. This is a beautiful storybook with outstanding color illustrations, and the text concentrates on the real meaning of Christmas rather than Santa Claus, toys, and getting physical gifts.
