A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN
=i=
I know of only one book which really aids parents and others who have to
oversee children's reading. That is Annie Carroll Moore's invaluable
_Roads to Childhood_. The author, as supervisor of work with children in
the New York Public Library, has had possibly a completer opportunity to
understand what children like to read and why they like it than any other
woman. What is more, she has the gift of writing readably about both
children and books, and an unusual faculty for reconciling those somewhat
opposite poles--things children like to read and the things it is well for
them to read.
Miss Moore says that the important thing is a discovery of personality in
children and a respect for their natural inclinations in reading--an early
and live appreciation of literature and good drawings is best imparted by
exposure rather than by insistence upon a too rigid selection. "What I
like about these papers," said one young mother, "is that they are good
talk. You can pick the book up and open it anywhere without following a
course of reading or instruction to understand it. There is full
recognition of the fact that children are different and react differently
to the same books at different periods of their development."
Maude Radford Warren's _Tales Told by the Gander_ is one of those books
for children that adults find interesting, too; and there is a new series
of children's books by May Byron, concerning which I must say a few words.
The series is called "Old Friends in New Frocks" and here are a few of the
titles:
_Billy Butt's Adventure: The Tale of the Wolf and the Goat._
_Little Jumping Joan: The Tale of the Ants and the Grasshopper._
_Jack-a-Dandy: The Tale of the Vain Jackdaw._
These books are noteworthy for their beautiful illustrations. Each volume
has an inspired and fanciful frontispiece in colours by E. J. Detmold and
line illustrations by Day Hodgetts. Moreover, there are end papers and the
binding has a picture in colour that begins on the back and extends all
the way around in front. Naturally they are for very young children--shall
we say up to seven years old?
=ii=
On April 29, 1922, the Philadelphia Public Ledger printed a letter from
twelve-year-old Marion Kummer, as follows:
"Dear Mr. Editor: My father asked me to write you a story about him and
they say at school that I am good at stories, so I thought I would. I
think he thinks I can write and become a great writer like him some day,
but I would rather be a great actress like Leonora Ulrick. I saw her in a
play where she went to sleep and they stuck pins in her but could not wake
her up, which part I should not like. But at that I would rather be an
actress because acting is pleasanter and more exciting and you do not have
to write on the typewriter all day and get a pain in your back. Daddy says
he would rather shovel coal but he does not, but snow sometimes, which has
been very plentiful about here this winter, also sledding.
"When he is not working, he goes for a walk with the dogs, or tells us
most any question we should ask almost like an encikelopedia. He is very
good-natured and I love the things he writes, especially plays. Daddy has
just finished a children's book called _The Earth's Story_ about how it
began millions of years ago when there was a great many fossils, so nice
for children. Also about stone axes. My brother Fred made one but when he
was showing us how it worked the head came off and hit me on the foot and
I kicked him. So stone axes were one of the man's first weapons. Daddy
read us each chapter when it was done and we helped him except baby
brother who wrote with red crayon all over one chapter when no one was
there, and he should not have been in Daddy's office anyway. Daddy has to
draw horses and engines for him all the time. He gets tired of it but what
can he do?"
Now this is very pleasant, for here on the table is the first volume of
_The Earth's Story--The First Days of Man_ by Frederic Arnold Kummer; and
this book for children has a preface for parents in it. In that preface
Mr. Kummer says:
"In this process of storing away in his brain the accumulated knowledge of
the ages the child's mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along the
same route that the composite minds of his ancestors travelled, during
their centuries of development. The impulse that causes him to want to
hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out in the woods, to use his
hands as well as his brain, is an inheritance from the past, when his
primitive ancestors did these things. He should be helped to trace the
route they followed with intelligence and understanding, he should be
encouraged to know the woods, and all the great world of out-of-doors, to
make and use the primitive weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made and
used, to come into closer contact with the fundamental laws of nature, and
thus to lay a groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking which cannot
be gained in the classroom or the city streets.
"As has been said, the writer has tested the methods outlined above. The
chapters in _The First Days of Man_ are merely the things he has told his
own children. It is of interest to note that one of these, a boy of seven,
on first going to school, easily outstripped in a single month a dozen or
more children who had been at school almost a year, and was able to enter
a grade a full year ahead of them. The child in question is not in the
least precocious, but having understood the knowledge he has gained, he is
able to make use of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure grasp
on things, which makes study of any kind easy for him, and progression
correspondingly rapid."
To say that _Jungle Tales, Adventures in India_, by Howard Anderson Musser
is a series of missionary tales of adventure in India, is to give no idea
of the thrills within its covers. There are fights with tigers, bears and
bandits, and there is one long fight against ignorance and disease,
superstition and merciless greed. And the fighter? He was an American
athlete, who had won honour on the track and football field. Great for
boys!
=iii=
The English _Who's Who_ says: "Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins"--then
follows a string of degrees--"David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis,
University College, South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical
Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National Memorial Association
since 1921.... Entered Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909;
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile Expedition, 1898
(medal with clasp, despatches); Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp);
Osmanieh 4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 (C.B., C.M.G.,
despatches six times, Brevetted Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer),
Couronne de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre (Belgian),
1918, retired from Army, 1921."
But I don't suppose that it was as a consequence of anything in that
honourable record that Colonel Cummins wrote _Plays for Children_, in
three volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another fact which the
English_ Who's Who_ mentions (very briefly and abbreviatedly) as "four
_c._"
The possession of four children is a natural explanation of three volumes
of juvenile plays.
But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins write them wholly for his
youngsters? As I read these little plays, it seems to me that there is
frequently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, satire--what you
will--which, unappreciated by the youngsters themselves, will make these
household dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any rate, this is
exceptional work; you may be sure it is, for publishers are not in the
habit of bringing out an author's three volumes of children's plays all at
one stroke, and that is what is happening with Colonel Cummins's little
dramas.
What is there to say in advance about _The Fairy Flute_, by Rose Fyleman?
No one of the increasing number who have read her utterly charming book of
poems for children, _Fairies and Chimneys_, will need more than the breath
that this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I think everyone who
reads this) the pleasure of quoting a poem from _Fairies and Chimneys_.
This will show those who do not know the work of Rose Fyleman what to
expect:
PEACOCKS
Peacocks sweep the fairies' rooms;
They use their folded tails for brooms;
But fairy dust is brighter far
Than any mortal colours are;
And all about their tails it clings
In strange designs of rounds and rings;
And that is why they strut about
And proudly spread their feathers out.
=iv=
Francis Rolt-Wheeler has spent years at sea, travelled a great deal in the
West Indies, and South America, trapped at Hudson Bay, punched cattle in
the far West, lived in mining camps, traversed the greater part of the
American continent on horseback, lived with the Indians of the plains and
lived with the Indians of the Pueblos, was a journalist for several years,
has been in nearly every country of the world, and when last heard from
(May, 1922) was meandering through Spain on his way to Morocco intending
to take journeys on mule-back among the wild tribes of the Riff. He is
studying Arabic and Mohammedan customs to prepare himself for this latest
adventure. He writes boys' books.
Can he write boys' books? If a man of his experience cannot write boys'
books, then boys' books are hopeless.
_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, besides the thrill of the story relating Stuart
Garfield's adventures in Haiti, contains glimpses of the whole pageant we
call "the history of the Spanish Main." There is a chapter which gives an
account of Teach and Blackbeard, the buccaneers. Other chapters offer
natural history in connection with Stuart Garfield's hunt for his father.
The boy gets an inside view of newspaper work and a clear idea of native
life in Haiti and of conditions which brought about American intervention
on the island.
_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_ is, explicitly, the story of Julio
and his guidance of two North American boys to the buried treasure of the
Incas; but the book is much more than that. It gives, with accuracy and
exceptional interest, a panorama of South American civilisation.
These are the first two volumes of the "Boy Journalist Series." Two other
books, the first two volumes in the series called "Romance-History of
America," are:
_In the Days Before Columbus_, which deals with the North America that
every youngster wants to know about--a continent flung up from the ocean's
bed and sculptured by ice; a continent that was kept hidden for centuries
from European knowledge by the silent sweep of ocean currents; a continent
that developed civilisations comparable with the Phoenician and Egyptian;
the continent of the Red Man. The book places what we customarily call
"American History" in its proper perspective by hanging behind it the
stupendous backdrop of creation and the prehistoric time.
_The Quest of the Western World_ is not the usual story of Columbus,
preceded by a few allusions to the adventurings of earlier navigators. Dr.
Rolt-Wheeler has written a book which goes back to the days of Tyre and
Sidon, which includes the core of the old Norse and Irish sagas, and which
comes down to Columbus with all the rich tapestry of a daring past
unrolled before the youthful reader. Nor does the author stand on the
letter of his title; he tells the story of the Quest both backward and
forward, tying up the past with the present and avoiding, with singular
success, the fatal effect which makes a child feel: "All this was a long
time ago; it hasn't anything to do with me or today."
And now two new Rolt-Wheeler books are ready! _Heroes of the Ruins_, the
third volume of the "Boy Journalist Series," tells of a fourteen-year-old
who lived for four years of war in trenches and dugouts. Andre, the Mole,
went from one company to another, dodged the authorities and successfully
ran the risks of death, emerging at the end to take up the search for his
scattered family, from whom he had been separated in the early days of the
fighting.
The third volume in the "Romance-History of America" books is _The Coming
of the Peoples_, which tells how the French, Spanish, English and Dutch
settled early America.
=v=
Olive Roberts Barton is a sister of Mary Roberts Rinehart. When she taught
school in Pittsburgh for several years before her marriage, she worked
with children of all sizes and ages during part of that time and found
small children were her specialty. She says:
"Working with them, and giving out constantly as one must with small
children, was like casting bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I
was giving them, not after many days but at once; their appreciation,
their spontaneous sympathy, their love gave to me something I could get
nowhere else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I still feel, that
children give us the best things the world has to offer, and my effort has
been to make some return. Twice during the crises in my married life I
went back to the schoolroom for comfort. Once after the death of one of my
own children, when I had no others left, and again when my husband went to
the battle-fields of France.
"I have written with the same experience as I taught. My first successes
were with adult fiction. I have had something like six hundred short
stories published by syndicates, and magazine articles have appeared from
time to time, but gradually I realised that I wanted children for my
audience. Several years ago I published _Cloud Boat Stories_. Later _The
Wonderful Land of Up_. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to
start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That
was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago.
They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many
newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one
wishes to do his best.
"I have two children of my own. They are my critics. What they do not
like, I do not write. We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a
little wild animal is a fairy."
But when I try to say something about the _Nancy and Nick_ series I find
it has all been said for me (and said so much better!) by that
accomplished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson:
"I have just finished all of the books by Olive Roberts Barton. They are
truly spontaneous and delightful. In fact, they have carried my small
group of children listeners and myself along as breathlessly as if they
were Alice in Wonderland or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful
nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent of ideas which
they can make use of in their business of everyday living. Children love
morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter on Examinations in
Helter Skelter Land, and Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy Turvy
Land, and I found my group not only seriously discussing them but putting
them into practice. Speaking of putting things into practice, there is
only one spot in all of the books which seemed to me as if it might get
some children into trouble. The description of Waspy Weasel's trick on the
schoolmaster in Helter Skelter Land where he squeezes bittersweet juice
into the schoolmaster's milk and puts him to sleep, I think would lead any
inquiring mind to try it.
"The whale who loved peppermints, Torty Turtle with his seagull's wings
on, the adventures of the children when they help Mr. Tingaling collect
the rents--this isn't the same old stuff of the endless 'bedtime' stories
which are dealt out to us by the yard. These animals are real people with
the tinge which takes real imagination to paint.
"At first I was disappointed in the pictures, but as I read on I came
to like those also, and I found that they were wholly satisfactory to the
children. The picture of the thousand legger with all his shoes on is
entrancing, and poor Mrs. Frog cutting out clothes because the
dressmaker had made them for the children when they were still
tadpoles. These books ought to come like an oasis in the desert to the
poor-jaded-reading-aloud-parent."
=vi=
At Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in a small house built from her own plans
and standing 2,000 feet above sea level, in a growing shade of trees,
lives Marion Ames Taggart, author of the Jack-in-the-Box series--four
children's books that renew their popularity every year. They are:
AT GREENACRES
THE QUEER LITTLE MAN
THE BOTTLE IMP
POPPY'S PLUCK
_At Greenacres_ and _The Queer Little Man_ are particularly good to read
aloud to a group of children; they really are the mystery and detective
story diluted for children.
Miss Taggart, an only child and extremely frail in childhood, had the good
fortune as a consequence of ill-health to be educated entirely at home. As
a result she had free access to really good books--for the home was in
Haverhill, Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to write for
young girls in 1901, when her first book (for girls of about sixteen) was
published in St. Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed
friends in her stories under their own names--as where, in the
Jack-in-the-Box series, one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart's own plump
grey kitten.
What will the children say to _A Wonder Book_, by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
with pictures in color by Arthur Rackham? I do not know why I ask this
rhetorical question, which, like most questions of the sort, should be
followed by exclamation points! There will be exclamations, at any rate,
over this book, surely the most beautiful of the year, perhaps of several
years. The quality of Arthur Rackham's work is well known, its artistic
value is undisputedly of the very highest. And Hawthorne's text--the story
of the Gorgon's head, the tale of Midas, Tanglewood, and the rest--is of
the finest literary, poetic and imaginative worth.