Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-07
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEwELL.
children's books. Perhaps there are ju!
as good being written as ever.


| children's books Perhaps there are Just
rs good being written as ever.
| = X
Barter was the time-honored method
of adding to ones collection, especially
| of Henty. Boys dealt in "Henty books
| as they might in postage stamps. Often
| the son of an indulgent father would
grow tired of his Henty library and
offer to swap the whole for a 22-caliber
rifle or some other object which at
| tracted him.
One curious group of books was bound
| in paper and consisted of a collection
of temperance tracts in story form.
Ten Nights in Bar Room" was among
them. Some Smart-alec sophisticated
writer of today is going to come across
file of those books some time or other
and have a great deal of fun telling
the present generation about them.
| 1t is not enough to have copies of
| the books one had as boy. II possible,
one should have the identical books We
possess. for instance, beautiful edition
of THE Swiss Family Robinson" but
we would give 10 of it for the old book
we had as a lad. Boys are always
! split in their opinion of the relative
place of Robinson Crusoe" and 1.-THE
Swiss Family Robinson" Perhaps as
they grow older they tend to feel that
the latter is the best of the two. It's
hearty zest, descriptions of animals and,
above all, its family life, the heritage
of boys, makes it better for them and
in the main more interesting to them.
To solemnly purchase an old book, as
an adult, because it was a favorite in
ones childhood, is not the same. One
may have splendid copies of Andersen's
famous stories and of the Brothers
Grimm, but they can by no means take
the place of the large red and blue
volumes of childhood.
We would advise every boy, there
fore-and every girl, too, for that mat
ter-to make a mental resolve to keep
his present book collection, no matter
how large or small. The difficulty of
doing so will come in later school days,
perhaps high school or college. Those
years constitute a sharp division of a
life, and in them the victim-should
one say that?-tends to forget old
things in the zeal for the new.
1t Is easy for bright young man to
despise the boy that he was and to give
away his book collections. But in many
cases he will realize in later years that
the boy he was was a pretty good kid,
after all, with surprisingly good tastes,
especially in books.
Although the basis Of book selection
IN boyhood Is MADE on the recon-
mendation of teachers and books about
books, a part of it comes from the in
terchange of ideas among youthful
readers and especially from their taste
for adventure.
There is such a thing as adventur-
ing among books. Picture a boy in
knickerbockers (only "sissies" wore them
then, but regular fellers" wear them
today bending his head over the
mighty tones of Motleys History of
the Dutch Republic!
We assert that boys have good taste
in books. They never read suspicious
"off color" stories, but stick to the
plain old adventure stories. In this
regard, we are reminded of a 10-year-
old boy who went to see the Byrd
movie-and what do you think struck
him most about the film? There are
no old girls in It," he related triumph
antly. Love scenes made him sick"
he confided.
The writer here got the greatest
kick" in years recently at his first
seeing of Rin-Tin- Tin. It was at a
small neighborhood theater, and the
wonderful dog did his usual stuff and
made his usual run across country.
When he appeared away of on the
horizon, the whole audience of boys
broke into cheers and handclapS. Good
old Rin-Tin-Tinl He would catch the
villain! And he did, too, amid the
thunderous applause of 80 small boys
and your correspondent.