The Bungalo Boys: "Last of the Tree Ranchers!"

P.J. Hammel is a professor of Education at the University of
Saskatchewan.

This is almost a typical cowboy story: cowboys become aware of rustlers; cowboys track down rustlers; cowboys capture rustlers — but then the rustlers escape. There is even a “Little Shorty,” the typically inept (and comical?) cowhand usually portrayed in early cowboy movies. Would you now believe that the creatures rustled are trees, the rustlers are beavers, and the cowboys’ trusty steeds are also trees?

This is intended to be an imaginative and comic treatment of an old plot. Unfortunately itdoes not come off. What is meant to be witty and clever becomes embarrassingly inane — for example: “Bungalo Boys,” a dog named “Projectile,” a “budding” tree surgeon! The book is preachy and moralizing: “Ma Bungalo has vowed that her boys won’t grow up to be helpless men,” “Johnny-Bob flosses his teeth,” “She cautions that only experienced riders should attempt these tricks.”

Although first- and second-graders like slapstick comedy, this never reaches that level. John Bianchi is much more successful with his illustrations than with the text.