A Mothers List of Books for Children | Page 2

xiii) observe on closer study that the two classes of books which represent the two extremes among the childish readers--Mother Hubbard and Shakespeare--may still be said to be the opposite poles between which the whole world of juvenile literature hangs suspended. A child needs to be supplied with a proper diet of fancy as well as of fact; and of fact as well as fancy. He is usually so constituted that if he were to find a fairy every morning in his bread and milk at breakfast, it would not very much surprise him; while yet his appetite for the substantial food remains the same. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland seem nowhere very strange to him, while Chaucer and Spenser need only to be simply told, while Dana's Two Years Before the Mast and Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby hold their own as well as Jack and the Bean-Stalk. Grown up people have their prejudices, but children have few or none. A pound of feathers and a pound of lead will usually be found to weigh the same in their scales. Nay, we, their grandparents, know by experience that there may be early cadences in their ears which may last all their lives. For instance, Caroline (p. xiv) Fry's Listener would now scarcely find a reader in any group of children, yet there is one passage in the book--one which forms the close of some beggar's story about "Never more beholding Margaret Somebody and her sunburnt child"--which would probably bring tears to the present writer's eyes today, although he has not seen the book since he was ten years of age.
It may be that every mature reader will miss from the list some book or books of that precious childish literature which once throve and flourished behind school desks. They were books founded partly on famous history, as that of Baron Trenck and his escapes from prison, Rinaldo Rinaldini, and The Three Spaniards. I am told that children do not now find them in a pedlar's pack as we once found them, accompanied by buns and peddled like them at recess time. Even if we should find them both in such a place, they might have no such flavor for us now. It is something if the flowers of American gossip are retained in similar stories, even if their atmosphere is retreating from all the hills. It is enough to know that we have for all our children the works of Louisa Alcott and Susan Coolidge; that they (p. xv) have Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy and Mrs. Dodge's Hans Brinker and Miss Hale's Peterkin Papers and The William Henry Letters by Mrs. Diaz. We need not complain so long as our children can look inexhaustively across the ocean for Andrew Lang's latest fairy-book and Grimm's Household Stories as introduced to a new immortality by John Ruskin. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., January 4, 1909.

APPRECIATIONS (p. xvii)
I think your selections very carefully made and well adapted to children who have books at home and mothers who read them.... With many congratulations on the excellence of your book, both in form and substance, believe me yours sincerely, CAROLINE M. HEWINS. Hartford Public Library.
You do not owe me any thanks for my little assistance, for you have given me quite as much as I have given you. It is more stimulating than you can believe to discuss the subject with one whose point of view is not that of the librarian. You must not call yourself an amateur, however, for you are an expert on children's books. I have gained a great many ideas from you, and have enjoyed comparing notes with you immensely. Sincerely yours, CLARA W. HUNT. Brooklyn Public Library.
I am sending back your book with my notes and suggestions. It is (p. xviii) an uncommonly good list, however, and there is little that I have wished to add or to take away.... Your list is so good that I know you must have spent a great deal of time and very definite thought over it. You have certainly covered the ground thoroughly.... I have enjoyed seeing your list and shall be greatly interested in seeing it in final form.
Sincerely yours, ALICE M. JORDAN. Boston Public Library.

CONTENTS (p. xix)
PREFACE ......................................... ix
A MOTHER'S LIST BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON ... xi
APPRECIATIONS ................................. xvii
TWO YEARS OF AGE ................................ 21
THREE YEARS OF AGE .............................. 23
FOUR YEARS OF AGE ............................... 28
FIVE YEARS OF AGE ............................... 32
SIX YEARS OF AGE ................................ 40
SEVEN YEARS OF AGE .............................. 50
EIGHT YEARS OF AGE .............................. 59
NINE YEARS OF AGE ............................... 73
TEN YEARS OF AGE ................................ 92
ELEVEN YEARS OF AGE ............................ 114
TWELVE YEARS OF AGE ............................ 141
THIRTEEN YEARS OF AGE .......................... 171
FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE .......................... 198
AUTHOR AND TITLE INDEX ......................... 233
KEY TO PUBLISHERS .............................. 269

A MOTHER'S LIST OF