# St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 1/Books and Reading

Books and Reading.
A Youthful Critic
We have no wish to check young enthusiasm, but we doubt whether the writer, who is thirteen years old, fully understands how much her sentence Tennyson, all will admit, ranks high among poets, but is not our little friend somewhat forgetful of the claims of a few others? Perhaps, before putting the English Laureate of Victoria’s reign at the head of the class, she might consider more carefully the merits of Homer and Dante, Shakspere and Milton, Virgil and Chaucer—to name a half-dozen that might be thought worthy of her attention. But the object of naming these neglected worthies is only to point out to the critic that she has not said what she probably meant to say. Did she not mean: “Of all the poetry I read, I like Tennyson's best”? If that was her meaning, she deserves praise for good taste, and not blame for exaggeration.
“Snowed Under”
Would it not be well to keep a little note-book in which to enter the names of “things we mean to read,” so that they will not be snowed under and forgotten? There are so many valuable articles in the magazines that the best of them should not be pushed aside by the new numbers which follow on so quickly.
A Boy Makes His Own Bookplate
I am thirteen years old, and have finished my first year in the High School. I enjoy St. Nicholas very much, I am very fond of reading, and think Ernest Thompson Seton’s books fine. “Rag,” and “Molly Cottontail,” and “Krag,” are among my favorites in his books. I wonder if St. Nicholas readers know of “Eye-Spy?” by William Hamilton Gibson, among nature books.
With best wishes for the magazine,
Another Corre- spondent
Ought we not to know more of this great neighbor of ours? Perhaps if we knew each other better we should be even better friends, and it would be well to strengthen other ties before we cut the isthmus.
Books that are not yet Familiar
| “The Middle Five” (Indian life), | F. La Flesche. |
| “Teens” (girl life), | L. Mack. |
| “Three Girls, and Especially One,” | M. A. Taggart. |
| “The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,” | J. L. Fox. |
The same correspondent mentions some dogs celebrated in literature.
She names Dr, Brown's famous “Rab,” Ouida’s “Mouffiou,” Flora Shaw’s “Royal” in “Castle Blair” (so warmly praised by Ruskin), “Argus,” the dog who died with joy at the return of Ulysses. But she does not mention one of our favorites, the noble “Bob, Son of Battle.”
English History
From a very brief list we may select a few suggestions. Beginning with Lainer’s “The Boy’s King Arthur” or Howard Pyle’s “King Arthur and his Knights,” we go on to Kingsley’s “Hereward,” Scott’s “Ivanhoe,” Bulwer’s “Harold,” Doyle's “White Company,” Stevenson’s “Black Arrow,” Bulwer’s “Last of the Barons,” and, after a few more, come to “ Kenilworth” and “Westward Ho!” and “Lorna Doone,” Doyle's “Micah Clark,” and Thackeray’s “Esmond,” which brings us to Queen Anne's days.
We should be very glad to have a more thorough and complete list, or information from some friend as to where such a list is to be found. And if the same friend or another can likewise make up a good list to accompany the study of American history, we are sure that our young students will appreciate the favor. School histories cannot spare space to give the little happenings that make history live, and the best pictures of natural life are to be found in good fiction.
But we do not wish lists of books meant especially for young readers. We prefer books that can be read by either young or old—such as Cooper's “Spy,” Mitchell’s “Hugh Wynne,” or Hall’s “Boys of Scrooby.”
“On the Fly.”
There is another habit that may be here spoken of, since it arises from the same uneasy curiosity and restlessness. This is the habit of always reading whenever one has nothing else to do; that is, of never sitting simply quiet. Reading is not thinking, and thinking is quite as valuable. If you never operate your mind except in grooves provided for it, you will weaken your powers of thinking. Sit quietly, and let your mind exercise its powers on material of its own choosing.
You may find that your own mind is not so bad a story-teller after all.