ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Andrew Lang's "Blue Book," although this may be considered a good deal of fairy lore for such a small collection.

Following these comes Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," the work of a true magician, who knew how to make real things as surprising and interesting to the youthful mind as any ordinary wizard at work with his fancies.

Now we have " Alice in Wonderland." It would be wicked to prevent a child, of any age, from becoming acquainted with the dormouse and the fading grin of the Chesh

ire cat.

Then "Uncle Remus" takes his place, not only because we choose him, but because he is bound to be there by right.

I might say something here about the "Arabian Nights," but, really, we have had so much of the wonderful, the fantastic, and the supernatural, and so much depends upon what edition of these immortal tales we might select, that I will not be positive about the "Arabian Nights." I will let the whole thousand and one of them stand upon their own merits, and we shall see what will happen next.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

Then we must take "Hans Brinker, or not care for this list because it is so oldfashioned. Well, it is old-fashioned, and that is the kind of a list that I would make out for a family of young people for whom I had a real affection and regard.

The Silver Skates," by Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge; and with it Miss Alcott's "Little Women." Here we come back to our own world again, and although everything is real, the life in these stories will hold the youngsters, after they begin to read them, as closely as any fairy tale.

Next we shall have Mr. Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy." Good boys and bad boys enjoy this book, and so do the girls of both kinds, for it has been noticed that interesting girls are always on the lookout for interesting books about boys.

Then we must put down the "Peterkin Papers," by Lucretia P. Hale, because they contain the truest and most spontaneous fun that has ever been written for children. And after them I shall take "Tales from Shakespeare," by Charles and Mary Lamb. When the children have read these, they will be better able to appreciate, in later years, the Variorum Edition by Dr. Furness.

We shall end our list with Kipling's "Jungle Book," for the girls and boys of twelve will find in this a new life and a new world, and Mowgli will tell them so many wonderful things.

It may be that some young people bright, intelligent young people, too-will

FROM TUDOR JENKS

Author of "Imaginotions," "Galopoff," etc., etc. In choosing books as the "best" for children from six to twelve, I believe the taste of the children should be guided. As we are omnivorous physically, so are we omnivorous mentally, until good taste is cultivated. Therefore, in making a list, I should put in what ought to be liked, in the faith and belief that the appetite would come with the reading. My list contains only fiction, taking educational and religious reading for granted.

First I should put an appropriate edition of the "Arabian Nights," on the ground that it is the best of fanciful fiction, lacking only humor. "Alice in Wonderland," having humor, follows as the best of modern fanciful work. "Gulliver's Travels," edited and illustrated, Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," and Thackeray's "The Rose and the Ring," with Kingsley's" Water-Babies," ought to be enough food for the young reader who desires imaginative work.

In realistic stories I should choose Mrs. Ewing's "Mary's Meadow," a pure, wholesome, and artistic bit of fiction; Miss Alcott's "Little Men," in deference to children's own taste; one of Jacob Abbott's Franconia stories, "Malleville " for instance; Aldrich's " Story of a Bad Boy;" and Susan Coolidge's "What Katy Did."

This is a list of eleven books. I do not find that children below twelve care for "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom Brown at Rugby," "Pilgrim's Progress," or stories about the classic heroes. I think they care little for verse, for most of Æsop, Andersen, Grimm, and Laboulaye. All tinkered classics and mutilated plays and poems simply blunt the appetite for the complete works later.

The books I have named are all works of established worth, and will please the children themselves. Many books often recommended-like Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," for example-are nearly unintelligible to young readers because of the big words used.

FROM AGNES REPPLIER Author of "Essays in Miniature," etc., etc. All books are good for children that do not vulgarize their minds, nor make them think themselves wiser than their elders. I should put at the head of my list Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," the "Arabian Nights," and Hans Andersen's fairy tales. Also any other fairy tales the little ones may like. Mr. Lang's collections-the earlier volumes especially are charming, and are illustrated in the way that children fancy, without any straining after poster effects.

[ocr errors]

Miss Edgeworth's best books, "Parents' Assistant," "Moral Tales," and Rosamond," have never been surpassed. She had distinction of mind, a very correct taste save in the matter of titlesand she knew how to be entertaining without flippancy. Flora Shaw's "Hector" and "Castle Blair" are good modern stories, a little strenuous, but sure to please.

Most of these books seem better fitted for little girls than for their brothers. But of the "Boy's Froissart" and "Boy's Mabinogion" it is impossible to speak with too much praise. They are admirable in design and execution, and they

open to the youthful mind the splendid fields of history and romance.

FROM CAROLINE M. HEWINS Of the Hartford Public Library, author of "Books for the Young."

[ocr errors]

It is fair to suppose that the requests for book lists which come to you are from homes where fathers and mothers have books of their own, and in many cases from cities and towns where classics like "Robinson Crusoe," Evangeline," the "Arabian Nights," and "The Alhambra,” and newer books for young children, like Baldwin's "Fifty Famous Stories Retold" and Jane Andrews's "Seven Little Sisters," are used as supplementary reading in the schools. If not, they should be bought for home use in inexpensive school editions.

A Bible with pictures is better for children than any collection of Bible stories, and books of physical science for children are of little use to a boy who has an inventive and mechanical mind and is ready for the "Scientific American" or an electrical newspaper almost as soon as he can read.

The best books for a child are the books that widen his world. A man or woman in middle life or old age who loves poetry and great pictures and statues, is familiar with Shakespeare, and has historic sense, imagination, a sense of humor, and a love of nature, is full of resources and the joy of living. No one can ever have these resources and that joy who has not had them from earliest childhood. Some books that enrich children's lives are:

1. A good collection of poetry. The best that I know is Katharine H. Shute's "Land of Song." In addition to the poems printed in it, every volume has a list of poems or authors excluded for lack of room, but recommended for children.

2. A collection of pictures like the "Masterpieces of Art," published at fifteen cents a month by the Bates & Guild Company, so cheap that they can be used like any picture-books.

3. A one-volume edition of Shakespeare, in good type and full of pictures, but not too expensively bound for children to handle as freely as the "Mother Goose" which they should know by heart at six years old. There is an edition

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

illustrated by Sir John Gilbert that is as the Wild Flowers," Neltje Blanchan's good as any. "Bird Neighbors," Howard's "Insect Book."

4. A book of historical pictures. There is an "England's History as Pictured by Famous Painters," edited by A. G. Temple, that is well worth the four dollars which it costs here, and may be made a present to a whole family. Children learn United States history and read the lives of great Americans in school, but they need broader historical training at home.

5. A collection of fairy tales or myths. It may be Grimm, or Andersen, or Andrew Lang's many-colored fairy-books, or Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," or Francillon's "Gods and Heroes," for younger children, or Mrs. Valentine's "Old, Old Fairy Tales."

6. A book full of absurd fun, like Lear's "Nonsense Book" or "Alice in Wonderland." This gives children a standard for judging humor, and cultivates a sense of nonsense that will help them over hard places in later life.

7,8,9,10. Out-of-door books like Schuyler Mathews's "Familiar Trees and their Leaves," Mrs. Dana's "How to Know

All these books should be on low open shelves where children can reach them and learn to treat them well. Some of them will wear out, but have them rebound or get another copy. As Ruskin says in regard to other reading, "Of course you must or will read other books for amusement, once or twice; but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them."

FROM NORA A. SMITH Author of "Children of the Future," etc., etc. What, do you ask me, are the best books for children? I believe that they are those which they would naturally choose under the following circumstances:

First, give the child a mother who will sing sweet baby-songs and repeat charming bits of verse to him as he lies in her arms by the nursery fire, for the beginnings of literary taste are made here; second, send him by and by to a really intelligent, cultivated kindergartner who will feed him

on the marrow of tradition-on fable and myth, fairy and folk story, on wonder-tales of science, too, and on tales of gods and heroes. See to it, also, that in kindergarten and home no day slips by without the magic touch of poetry upon its shoulder, and teach the eager listener some verse worthy to be his perpetual possession.

Postpone his learning to read until he really longs to know the meaning of the printed symbol, and be sure, if thus postponed, the art will be attained speedily and be practiced with delight.

Last of all, open the library doors to the happy child and give him free entrance. Let him begin at the first book on the top shelf and read completely around the room, until, on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, he lays down the last volume on the lowest shelf of all. If you have selected your books wisely, nothing in the library will hurt him; if there are weeds here and there, a noxious growth, a reptile, or a slimy rock, he will swim down the pure current of literature as regardless of them all as the fish in the flowing stream.

[graphic]

MY

[blocks in formation]

Y mother had three daughters, an' the ouldest one was me,
The other two was married in their youth;

'Tis well for them that likes it, but by all that I could see

It 'ud never fit meself, an' there's the truth.

Oh never think I'm wantin' to miscall the race o' men,
There's ne'er a taste o' harm in them, the cratures!
They're meddlesome, an' quarrelsome, an' troublesome-but then
The Man Above He put it in their natures.

I'd never be uncivil, sure an' marriage must be right,

Or what 'ud bring the childer to the fore?

Wid their screechin' an' their roarin' an' balorin' day an nightMe sister Ann has five, an' Jane has more.

I couldn't work wid childer, an' the men's a bigger kind,
But muddy an' mischeevous like the small;

Ye've got to larn them betther, an' ye've got to make them mind,
An' ye've got to keep them aisy afther all.

I'm betther doin' wi' dumb things, a weeny black-face lamb,

Or the yellow goosey-goslin's on the knowe;

The neighbors think I'm sensible wi' sick ones, so I am-
Sure 'twas me that saved the life o' Mullen's cow.

Aye, ye'll often hear them say a woman cannot bide her lone,
An' its fifty years alone that I have bided;

They're very apt to say no woman yet could guide her own-
But them that God guides is well guided.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »