Mr. Dawson's first name is Donald, and his wife's name is Marjorie. They live on a nice farm, and raise cows and chickens. They have very pleasant neighbors—the Longs, the Shorts, the Blacks, the Blues, the Whites, the Greens and the Slows. They all live just down the road from Mr. Dawson, and he helps make their days and nights exciting.
For Mr. Dawson himself is a most interesting person. He always has the best intentions but things almost never turn out quite the way he expects. Perhaps this is because he is not at all fond of hard work. No one ever calls Mr. Dawson lazy—but he is slow to get around to useful chores. He would rather plan simpler ways to handle them. He would much rather go fishing. Luckily the neighbors are all glad to help him out of difficulties. Mr. Dawson accepts their help gracefully, and why shouldn't he? Even though he is always creating curious predicaments for them—and sometimes for himself—the mis-chances have the strangest way of turning out delightfully for everyone concerned. If he is a trial to his good wife, you'd never suspect it from anything she says or does.
The tempo, the vocabulary, the surprise at the end of each chapter are just right for young children. There's a rhythm in the style that captivates them. The humor is just right for all ages—beginning readers, young readers and reading-aloud grownups. It is never thin or strained. Mr. Dawson Had a Farm is genuinely, naturally and effortlessly amusing.
It is original, native American humor. The polite characters do not laugh at Mr. Dawson any more than they would think of scolding him. It is the reader who does the grinning, the giggling, the chuckling. There's never a signpost: "Laugh here!" The reader needs none.
Mr. Dawson is a creation. You love him. You love to talk about him. You can read about him, not once, but many, many times and never have enough.
—from the dust jacket
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