The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-12-07
YOUR CHILDREN
by Olts Roborls berton

l - .I1E Et t1 S. '.t ''IH .f'F.'',
 1t seems almost incredible tisat in this day and era q child could grow up without books. I mean books in the home. Yet c girl of seventeen sighed the other day as she said she wished she had had books when she was q little girl. 1t came about at Little The4ter' performance for children. They were playing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and she did not know the story--until, of course, the play was over.
 This girl. camo of Q good" fam fly. Her father was lawyer and promoter and always made money. She had everything a child could wish when she was little, includ- ing pony, and the wonder of the l town, q little black and white monkey. Slie had more clothes than almost any other child knew, lived in q big house and travelled with her aunt extensively. Her mother died when she was about ten.
 Always wanted Books Perhaps this accounts for the | fact that she had never been given know the classical fairy tales at books. And yet most children know the classical fairy tales at that age.
 T always wanted books--I ai- ways asked for them," she ex- plained when I expressed surprise, "but maybe they thought I was nervous. or didn't get out enough or something's. I never owned q | al books, until was great big girl"
 One day woman was giving a book to q child for birthday gift. | She proudly showed me the mod ern volume of little stories illus trated in a manner we children would have opened our eyes over when We were little had anything half 50 marvellous came our way. Pasteis of fairyland, fit for . French boudoir!
 Didn't Know Cinderella As carefully leafed through this wonderful book she said, "Do please look at the illustration of Cinderella"
 "Who7"
 "cinderilial It is so absolutely
 "oh. you mean Cinderella" I corrected rudely.
 "Is 1t Ella? she repeated much amused. You know never knew those stories as a little girl. My parents didn't believe in things like. that. I'm afraid have missed something's"
 This lady has never been poor. She has had blessings that lot of us have missed. All but one thing. The wealth of stories that we can close our eyes and live over again she will never have. She can read them now but with the shut mind of middle age. She cannot Tive" them as little child lives them and remembers.
 Even Cinderella" which she must have heard hundreds of times, did not register clearly. Un- believable, isn't 1t!
 Fast fin Minds Always
 It seems that l am sticking to fairy tales, but that is merely a coincidence. Fairy tales are only Il hundredth part of the wealth of reading for children.
 Books are eternal treasures. should not let Christmas go by thing from ten cents to ten dollars ---they are there to fit any one's purse. Don't look upon 6 book as merely paper and ink. A book is Q country, continent, a world, that can never be taken away from us, even after the covers have crumpled and the printing has blurred. Snow White," Gin. derella," "The Sleeping Beauty" Alice" are as important as Solved" "Guinevere" or "fsolde" and will 1.-Two longer in our minds than any of the classical ladies of later-life reading, even the read ing of the "teens."