Back to the Bean Farm:
Rereading the Freddy Books

Freddy and the Space Ship

by Kevin W. Parker


WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don´t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you.

Freddy and the Space Ship is next on my list for the totally irrelevant reason that I recently bought it from Connie. Conveniently, though, it provides a contrast to the previous two, coming as it does toward the end of the series and at the start of what one may think of as the science fiction trilogy (Space Ship, Men from Mars, Baseball Team from Mars ) within the Freddy books.

I should be predisposed to favor this book, having been an avid reader (and watcher) of science fiction since I was in elementary school. However, the attempt to juxtapose science-fiction elements with the down-to-earth nature of the Bean farm and its denizens does not work terribly well. The science-fictional elements are reasonably well-done, from the timing of the trip to Mars to the experience of zero-g; however, it seems out-of-place in this series of books. Freddy in orbit doesn´t seem like quite the same Freddy that we have come to know.

Likewise, the two key plot threads of this book don´t seem to fit well. On the one hand, there are the Bismuths and the efforts to get rid of them, and, on the other, the whole business with the spaceship. The result is that the story seems episodic, moving in fits and starts, and never really comes together.

Still, there are some nice bits in here, with the key one being (spoiler alert!) the intrepid space travelers thinking they are on Mars when they´re actually back on earth. Freddy as Captain Neptune (complete with death ray) is good for some laughs as well. Then there is Mrs. Peppercorn´s terrible poetry, about which the less said the better.

Another positive element that struck me is how good a job Brooks does with continuity. We have all the old familiar characters acting as we remember them, plus many previously established human characters from Centerboro. I found it particularly entertaining to find Mr. Garble defending Mr. Bismuth in the trial at the end. (Another joy throughout is Brooks gift for nomenclature, which is one thing that certainly does not flag in this book.)

I´ve said before that one of the touchstones of a book is the quality of the villain, and, compared with the Ignormus or Mr. Flint, Mr. Bismuth falls far short. Brooks does his usual superb job of drawing a clear character (actually characters, considering the rest of the family), but he´s really more annoying than threatening. Too, there seems to be an undercurrent of bitterness by Brooks about the Bismuths of this world, giving the depiction more of a hard-edged, satirical tinge than seems appropriate to a children´s book. I find it a bit unsettling, though it´s not hard to disregard.

On the other hand, I´ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Uncle Ben, man of remarkable ingenuity and few words. (And Connie will tell you that I drive like him. Don´t believe her.) I love the bit about "It is all very well to explain things in words of one syllable, but to explain them in sentences of one syllable is not easy." I was going to say that this is one of his better outings, but it occurs to me that he really doesn´t show up all that much and in fact all but disappears in the second half of the book.

Anything else I say good about this story is going to be along the same lines: bits and pieces that strike me as especially humorous. We have the Beans´ family photo album, Freddy looking out through his small wavy windowpanes, Hank trying to race a truck, and many more along the same lines. But most of them are just isolated bits.

In the end, what we have is a book with numerous entertaining elements, though which unfortunately does not come together as a unity the way that some of the best of the Freddy books do. The moral, I suppose, is that it is all but impossible to write twenty-seven Ignormuses or Cowboys, but that we should still admire Brooks for nevertheless achieving a remarkable standard of quality for such an extended series.