Nevada County picayune., 1891-01-08
JUVENILE LITERATURE.
Books That Children and Their Eioor'
 Have Road With Pleasure.

Ncver has literature for children boon SO profuse in quantity and so excellent in quality. Twenty-Five years ago the perennial fairy tales, translated rom the German. Sandford and Merton, the tales of Maria Edgcworth, all painfully pointing a moral, made up the accepted classics. Wordsworth had written a few verses. Mary Lambs little volume, so long lost represented the poetry sup posed to be suited to their taste.
 There were few English magazines, departments in the weekly journals, and Sunday-school papers filled with depressing and impossible anecdotes. Now poet novelist, historian, traveller, critic. artist and engraver must do their best.
 "Our Young Folks" of blessed mem- ory, worked revolution in childrens literature. It was considered a marvel ous thing that Longfellow Whittier and Mrs. Stowe-indeed. all the foremost writers of the country, should employ their great gifts in the amusement and edihcation of children. ltwas an experi- ment, and a remarkably succcssful one. To-day the children have the very best The pictures over which they sit in rapt delight embody perfection in design and drawing; Cox, and Church, and Rhinehart, May Halloch, | Foote and all the other leading illus trators have put the'r wits to work, and 1 the magazines for children to-day are something never dreamed of by those of l y, tho i'd at nf urh an abundance of good things there are, however, some that should always re- main standard.
 Of these Harriet Beecher Stowe's and Grace Greenwood's stories of animals are valuable for the lessons they teach | intoxicating kindness to Animals. For delicious nonsense, Alice in Wonder land" and Alice Through tho Looking Glass" will never be surpassed, and Ed ward Lear furnishes their metrical com l plement.
 For older children Charles Lambs l adaptation of the adventures of Ulysses 1 is recommended, with the tales from Shakespeare. Charles Kingsley's Wa ter Babies" Is an exquisite satire, toe deep, perhaps for the mind of any but 1 grown up people. Little Women" em' 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 incom parable picture o1 school life. In all juvenile literature there is nothing moro beautiful thar 1 George Macdonald's "At the Back of the l North Wind" The real and the imag' inativo are there blended as only he car combine them, yet the lesson that he would teach, gentleness, devotion te parents, truihfulness are made promi nent and worthy of imitation.
 "William Henry's Letters," to hi: l grandmother, with their unique illustra tions, are ef'usions which never tire, and there never was boy or girl who failed to appreciate the courage and integrity l of the freckled little hero and became ardently attached to all his relative' from the grandmother to Lucy Maria.
 In "Child Life" Whittier and Lucy Larcom have made a poetical collection that every child should have. Here 1: the "speech" for Friday at school, the l quotation ready at hand.
 | Charles Dickens History of England must always rank first of all the child, histories that have ever been written for into it were put the genius that ere sted Little Nell" and "Oliver Twist, and "Joe," and "The Child's Dream o Star"
 In the "Tanglcwood Tales" Flaw thorne has made mythology inviting, dash In which Charles Kingsley has beer equally successful, while in the "Twic' | Told Tales" the former stimulates inter est in colonial and revolutionary history
 The list might be extended almos endlessly but these are few goo' books which children will read agail and again, and of which they never tire Chicago Inter Ocean