BOOKS.
SOME CHILDREN'S BOOKS.*
PRESUMABLY all the "really truly" fairy-stories are "told out," for Mr. Andrew Lang gives us this autumn, instead of the usual fairy-book, a Book of Romance. He does his best, how- ever, to console us by pretending that a romance and a fairy- story are the same thing with the least little difference in the world,—" romances are only fairy-stories grown up." That is just as true as the incontestable fact that middle-aged people are only children grown up,—and no truer. But from the point of view of children we rather think that the grown-up-ness of romance is a point in its favour, just as the simplicity of the un-grown-up fairy-tale is more attractive when one is getting tired of being grown-up. In the preface—which children are sure to read, because it begins, with a declaration that prefaces are not for children—Mr. Lang reminds us that the " whole mass of the plot and incident of romance was invented by nobody knows who, nobody knows when, nobody knows where," and he gives a curious illustration of the ubiquity of Romance's great-grandmother, Myth. The Red Indians—however they came by it—have their version of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. And the negroes in the States have another version adapted to plantation life, here given verbatim. It is called " Dicey and Orpus," and it begins thus Dat war eber so long ago, 'cause me gran- mammy tell me so. It hain't no white-folks' yarn—no, Sah. Gall she war called Dicey, an' she war horned on de plantation. Whar Jim Orpus kum from, granmammy she disremember. He war a boss-fiddler, he war, an' jus' that powerful, dat when de mules in de cotton field listcn to ura, dey do budge in de furrer." Whether the negroes got their "Dicey and Orpus" from the Red Indians or not nobody can tell, and nobody need care. Nor need we ,care by whom or of whom were first told the feals and adventures gathered into Mr. Lang's newest story-book. The major part of the volume is filled with tales of the Arthurian cycle. But other matter comes in also : the battle of Roncesvalles, the pursuit of Diarmid, the story of Robin Hood, the story of Grettir the Strong. Indeed, the volume furnishes a full feast of things of a very good sort. It is, moreover, liberally and beautifully illustrated with twelve, coloured plates and numerous black-and-white ones. Among the coloured plates there are at least three or four that are impressive enough to add depth and poetry to the written page, and so help the child who reads them first in this version to get from the beginning the right feeling about the old stories. It should be mentioned that it is Mrs. Lang who tells the stories,—Mr. Lang only edits them.
The next book on our list, Five Children and It, might be recommended as wholesome and most entertaining medicine, to be taken by the child in whom The Book of Romance has induced too keen a regret for the lost, world of wonder and faerie. "It" is a sand-fairy, properly called a "Psammead," whatever that may mean, turned up by the children indus- triously digging through to the Antipodes. It has the power • (L) The Book of Romance. Edited by Andrew Lang. London : Longman and Co. tE6s.]—(2.) Five Children and It. By E. Nesbit. London : T. Filet: Unwin. 6s.]—(3.) The Visit to London. Pictures by Frances D. Bedford. Verses by dward Verrall Lucas. London Methuen and Co. [68.1—(4.) Peter Piper's Practical Principles. London Grant Richards. [1s. 6C—(5.) The Bad Mrs. Ginger. By Honor C. Appleton. Same publisher. [18. 6d.]—(6.) Mein Mr. Punch. By Gertrude M. Bradley and H. Hendry. Same publisher. [28. 6d.]—(7.) About Fairies and Other Facts. By Maud Stowell. Same publisher. [2s. 6d —(B.) The Story of Little Black Quibba. By the Author of • The Story pf Little Black Mingo London : J. Nisbet and Co. [1s. 641.] :1ds.-9a.r)The Snow Baby. By Josephine D. Peary. London : Lebister and Co. 00 Peter Parley's Works : Tales About the. Sea. London : Grant [is. 6d.]—(11.) Wonderful England ; or, The Happy Land. By Mrs. Ernest Ames. Same publisher. [3s. 6d.]—(12.) Twinkling Stars. Theodosis Abdy. London : Jerrold and Sons. [3s. 6d.1—(13.) The Golliwog's Air-Ship. Pictured by Florence K. Upton. Verses by Bertha Upton. London Longman and Co. [6s.]—(14.) Dolly's Society Book. Set out in Pictures by Frank Hart. London : Grant Richards. [3s. 6d.1—(15.) Young George. By Edith Farmiloe. London : W. Heinemann. _ _e42.]—(18.) Alta's Adventures. Written by G. R. Illustrated by John Ham11. London Longmans and Co. [3s. 6d.)—(17.) Uncle Lubin. Told and Illustrated by W. Heath Robinson. London : Grant Richards. [6s.]—(18.) Grant Richards's Children's Annual for 1903. Same publisher. 15a.1 of instantly granting wishes, and exceedingly amusing are the serapes into which the children are' brought by the successive gifts of the familiar,—extraordinary beauty, un- limited money, wings, a besieged castle to live in, the privi- lege of being bigger than the baker's boy, the instantaneous growing-up of the baby of the family, and the transference to their mother's room of a great lady's stolen jewels. This is in every respect a capital book, full of life and character, and mingling the impossible and the realistic most skilfully. It will amuse all sensible people from eight to eighteen. Not less good, though in quite different style and suitable only for young children, is The Visit to London, told in rhyme. Winnies country cousins pay her a visit in town, and she takes them round. They " do " Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, the Tower, &EL And they do it all intelligently and appreciatively, which is nice. But the element of fun is not wanting ; nor that of humour and naïveté. At the Tower they saw, among other things— "The suits of armour worn By many a gallant knight ;
But how they mounted thus their steeds Perplext the children quite; And how, with all his metal plates Securely riveted, A lonely knight remote from tools Could ever get to bed, Was more than T. could understand, Although he scratched his head."
Whether a vegetarian would make as good a Beef-eater as any other man, was another question that exercised T. The gulls and the pigeons of modern London are not forgotten. And an experience of fog comes in as a make-weight for the country life that has to be gone back to. The illustrations, all coloured, are particularly good, and the volume deserves hearty recommendation all round. In point of size it is a con- siderable jump from this handsome volume to the comfort- able little "Dumpy Books," Peter Piper's Practical Principles and The Bad Mrs. Ginger. But though these are "little," they are certainly "good," and so very convenient for small people's hands to hold in any position. The principles of Peter Piper are alliterative, concerned with pronunciation, and somewhat jaw-breaking. What could one not pronounce after a thorough course of " Captain Crackskull cracked a Catchpoll's Cockscomb: Did Captain Crackskull crack a Catchpoll's Cockscomb," &c. P ' The Bad Mrs. Ginger' was a yellow cat who bullied a little girl " just six inches high," until the fairies carried her away to Fairyland in recognition of her refusal to catch mice and birds for her tyrant. In a larger form of "Dumpy Book "-istinguished by lavender stripes instead of green—we get the scandalous history of Merry Mr. Punch, illustrated by Miss Bradley, and told by Mr. Hendry. • The pictures exactly reproduce Punch of the street, box and all; the letterpress appears to have innova- tions. But the literature of Punch is an intricate matter, and we leave this point to the specialist. Another larger "Dumpy Book " has the pleasant title, About Fairies and Other Facts. It is very pretty, with a vein of tenderness not common just now in the books intended for the nursery. Outwardly not very unlike the " Dumpy Books," but to be distinguished from them at all costs because it comes from another publisher, is the entirely delightful Story of Little Black Quibba, by the author, of course, of that other entirely delightful Story of Little Black Mingo. Quibba, setting forth on the long, weary road that wanders up the page, is a hero both quaint and lovable, and his adventures with that very green snake and very grey elephant are exhilarating. All these books should be bought up quickly, and given right and left to lucky boys and girls. So should. The . Snow Baby, a veritable history of the infancy of a little American girl, who happened to be born among the Eskimos. Snow Baby's picture on the cover, in bearskin coat and hood, is irresistible; and there is much interesting information within the covers about life in the Arctic regions. Peter Parley's Tales About the Sea is another sober practical little book of information that we are glad to welcome in a reprint innocent of decorative pretension.
From such volumes as these one passes somewhat ruefully to the books of smart nonsense, with handsome page, bright plates, tripping rhymes, up-to-date phrases, topical allusions, and asides of satire for the elders. Of these the crop never fails. And there is generally something to take one's fancy in each and all of them. But the nursery would do as well, or better, without any of them. Such are Won- derful England ; or, The Happy Land, by Mrs. Ernest Ames, a simple and comparatively innocent specimen of the class with bold and effective pictures ; and Twinkling Stars, an account of a journey through Starland, " with funny incidents and happenings." Here the incidents are pointless and the fun is far-fetched. The Golliwog' s Airship is of a different kind again, the nonsense being really funny in the simple way that provokes the laughter of children, with Dutch dolls navigating Golli- wog's ship, and one little ingenue doll who wears nothing but a tiny pair of wings and has a small airship and harrowing adventures all to herself. Dutch dolls figure again very cleverly in Dolly's Society Book, where all the functions of the London season are amusingly reproduced by doll's-house dramatis personae.
Over Miss Farmiloe's Young George : his Life, one lingers long. It is amazingly clever, and to the grown-up student— one cannot say reader, for in this book the letterpress is nothing, the pictures are everything—it is infinitely pathetic. But we doubt its pleasing children. There is no prettiness in it, and no daintiness. The vein is Phil May-ish." The matter is the experience of the small boy of London slum-life, who becomes the guardian angel of smaller brothers and sisters in circumstances defined by casual mention of the fact that when the mother does come home at night, she is generally too " uncertain " to be able to put the children to bed. In Miss Farmiloe's drawings we get all the pathos and the squalor of the gutter, but also its humour and its incomparable joie-de-vivre. But again we say, the vein and the art are not for the nursery. Neither is the humour of Alick's Adventures right for children; but this is in every respect a second-rate book, preten- tious, strained, and fussy. Uncle Lubin, on the other hand,
though grotesque, is of the right sort of grotesqueness. The distribution of the letterpress is artistic and pretty, a point on which children are appreciative, and the recovery of lost Peter makes a conclusion for the sake of which the adventures leading up to it will be many times re-read. We have left to the last, not at all because it is least, Mr. Grant Richards's
Children's Annual for 1903, a substantial volume full of all sorts of good fare for all sorts of children. It has prose and poetry, fairy-story, animal-story, story of the everyday child, and quantities of delightfully pretty illustrations, coloured and black,and-white.
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