Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1890-05-31
JUVENILE LITERATURE.
Books That Children and Their Elder
Have Read With Pleasure.

books That Children and Their Elders
Have Read with Pleasure.
Never has literature for children been
so profuse in quantity and so excellent
In quality. twenty-five years ago tho
perennial fairy tales, translated from
the German, Sandford and Merton, the
tales of Maria Edgeworth, all painfully
pointing a moral, made up the accepted
classics. Wordsworth had written few
verses, Mary Lambs little vo'ume so
long lost, represented the poetry sup
posed TO be suited to their taste.
There were few English magazines,
departments il. the weekly journals,
and Sunday-scaool papers filled with
depressing and impossible anecdotes.
Now poet, novelist, historian. traveller.
critic, artist ano engraver must do their
best.
sour Young Folks" Of blessed men,
ory, worked revolution in children's
literature. 1t was considered marvel
ous thing that Longfellow, Whittier and
Mrs. Stowe--indeed all the foremost
writer's of the country, should employ
their great gifts in the amusement and
edification OF children TWAS an expert
ment, and a remarkably successful ono.
To-day the children have the very best
The pictures over which they sit
in rapt del ght embody perfection
in design and drawing: Cox. and
Church, and Rhinehart, May Halloch,
Foote, and all the other leading illus
traitors have put the r wits to work, and
the magazines for children to-day are
something never dreamed of by those OF
generation ago. In the midst of such
an abundance of good things there are,
/ however, some that should always re-
main standard.
OF these Harriet Beecher Stoves and
! Grace Greenwood's stories Of animals
are valuable for the lessons they teach
inculcating kindness to animals. For
delicious nonsense, "Alice in Wonder
! land" and alice Through the Looking
+ Glass" will never be surpassed and Ed
ward Lear furnishes their metrical com.
/ plement a
For older children Charles Lambs
adaptation of the adventures of Ulysses
is recommended, with the tales from
/ Shakespeare. Charles Kingsley's "Wa-
ter Babies is an exquisite satire, too
deep, perhaps for the mind of any but
grown up people. Little Women" EN-
! bodies many sensible ideas, well put,
and will always be favorite. DR..
Hayes stories of Arctic life are as inter-
esting to boys as to girls. tom Brown
at Rugby is an incompatible picture of
school life. In all juvenile literature
there is nothing more beautiful than
George Macdonald's "At the Back of the
North Wind" The real and the imag-
NATIVE are there blended as only he can
would teach. gentleness, devotion to
parents, truhfulness are made promi-
nent and worthy of imitation.
civilian Henry's Letters" to his
grandmother, with their unique illustra-
tions. are effusions which never tire, and
there never was boy or girl who failed
to appreciate the courage and integrity
Of the frcckled little hero and became
ardently attached TO all his relatives
from the grandmother to Lucy Maria.
In Child life" Whittier and Lucy
Larcom have made poetical collection
that every child should have. Here is
the Speech for Friday at school, the
verse for the birthday, or the nece ssary
nuota tion ron 1v at hand
Charles Dickens "History of England
must always rank first os all the echild's s
histories that have ever been written,
for into it were put the genius that crc-
ated Little Nell" and "Oliver Twist"
and Joe" and ''The Child Dream OF
Star"
In the Tanglewood Tales" IIaw-
thorne has made mythology inviting, a
dash in which Charles Kingsley has been
equally successful, while in the Twice
Told Tales the former stimulates inter.
est in colonial and revolutionary history
The list might be extended almost
endlessly, but these are few good
books which children will read again
and again, and of which they never tire.
Chicago Inter Ocean.