Mr. Bean knows he has the smartest animals in the state of New York. He’s just not sure they can care for his farm by themselves while he takes his wife on vacation. So to show how responsible they are, Freddy the pig and his friends open the First Animal Bank of Centerboro.

With the bank a huge success and Mr. and Mrs. Bean in Europe, the animals decide to create the First Animal Republic. Freddy thinks that Mrs. Wiggins the cow would make a ﬁne president. John Quincy Adams, a woodpecker blown north from his home on the White House lawn in Washington, has other ideas.

Can a plainspoken cow compete against the slick political tricks of a wily woodpecker?

Walter R. Brooks