Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-18
NeN Books for
Our Readers
BY FLORENCE BosARD LAWRENCE

"Sunnyfield" is a thoroughly charm
ing book for young readers, who will
almost feel that they are taking
part In all the fun and adventures, so
like the real thing Is this story of it.
Any one, old or young, who has ever
had any experience with the nanny
goal, will appreciate the adventures of
Poday, the girl, and June, the boy, in
their endeavors to bring the refrac-
tory animal to their service. The story
of it Is lively enough and the change
to the pony comes none too soon.
Here, too, adventures and fun develop
that children and ponies can generally
bring about together before the ad-
vent made by the youngsters in their
outdoor life and education.
The zest of it all is fully appreciated
by the sympathetic author, to whom
child life and feelings are as an open
book, and the reader IL not child,
grows young again in the jolly days of
childhood recalled here and enters
into the pranks and exploits of these
happy children almost as If one OF
them, while to the juvenile they are as
real as anything outside his own ex-
perience could possibly make them.
The little book is in every way
charming one.
SunnyfieId, the Adventures of Poday
and June. BY Louis Morgan Gill.
New York; Harper & Bros.
That the child is the supreme factor
in human existence is demonstrated by
the author with a forcefulness that
must compel the serious consideration
of those men and women who do the
worlds thinking. For parents who APP
prove of their own methods of rearing
children the ideals advanced will seem
revolutionary in that they conflict at
nearly every point with the training
row in vogue.
To ignore a child's individuality; to
alternately caress and threaten and
bribe; to let him see untruthfulness
and temper in the one who Furnishes
him for those faults; to make promises
and break them; to refuse request
and then Immediately grant IT.; TO
push him aside at one time and az
another to kiss him until he is dis
guested; to make liar and coward or
him through fear, and a hypocrite by
promise OF reward-these are a few or
the ordeals of average chlldhood Whlch,
the writer declares, would drive most
men insane IL subjected to for a single
day In the opening chapter on THE
Right of the Child to Choose His Par
ents." there are statements resulting
from wears of experience in child study,
which, il carried out would forever
free the world from the mental and
physical weaklings whom nature never
intended to exist The unnecessary
distortions and sufferings inflicted by
ignorant or constituencies mothers
leads the writer to a very frank ex-
pression of her views of love in Its
relation to child bearing.
Granting the blessing of the kinder
garten for those mothers who work,
the writer, in a chapter, '"The School
of the Future,p believes that young
children will be taught at home. The
kindergarten is only factory Where
a group of children, regardless or tenn
perament, are taught TO DO tne Same
things The Froebel dictum, Let us
live for the children" must be changed
to LET us allow the children to live"
She considers that high schools and
colleges are absolutely destructive TO
personality, and bespeaks for coming
generations an indlVldual cuituIe tor
Individual natures as SUBSTITUTE TOT
the i'canned education" of today.
The Century of the Child. BY Ellen
Kay New York; G. p Puthams SONS
All readers, old and young, will take
keen delight in "The Book of Hun
dred Bears" fresh from the press, and
relating in most delightfully."- amusing
manner the tale of some days and some
bears of Yellowstone park. There is
Just enough of the descriptive writing
in the book to make it eminently Valu-
able to the prospective louilSt' VI "
those who cherish a visit to this great
national park as something to be hoped
and dreamed about.
The humor is of the kindliest and
but voices the spirit of the average
tourist, only it is expressed in far bet
ter manner than the average, or even
the unaverage, tourist can put it.
Boys, big and little, will enjoy every
word about those bears, and the way
they are fed, cuffed and petted by the
United States government and its en-
ployes. There is the story, too of the
trial of the bear who killed the fresh
young man. That bear could not be
killed until formal court gave per-
mission, and the tale is an'entertaining
one.
The Book of Hundred Bears. BY f.
Dumont Smith. Chicago: Rand, Nc
Nally & Co.
A history of American expansion is
presented in attractive form by II. Adj
dinotop Rrl1ce which will aDDeal to