The Story of St. Francis of Assisi. By Elizabeth W.
Grierson. With 16 illustrations and frontispiece in colour. (A. R. Mowbray and Co. 2s. 6d. net.)—Miss Grierson has had much experience in the writing of children's books, and certainly knows just what they want. She administers to them the right mixture of fact and sentiment, of laughter and tears, with a pinch of moral and a generous handful of illustrations ; she has now attempted a child's life of St. Francis of Assisi, on the whole successfully. But to adapt the "Fioretti " and the "Speculum" to the understanding of a child is a work of immense difficulty, especially in these prosaic and business-like days, when even to elder folk St. Francis makes but little appeal. The result of the attempt is that all the romantic simplicity of a wandering life in Italy has been kept, all the harshness and difficulties removed, while the phenomenon of the Stigmata, which is equally hard to explain, whether as miracle or as auto-suggestion, is treated somewhat on the lines of the wish- come-true of a fairy tale. This is all very delightful, and the photographs of the Giotto frescoes are charming, but it is not St. Francis. Still, if it is not St. Francis, it is at least a most per- fect saint for a child, one who preaches to the singing birds and lifts the worms from the footway, and fills his world with the simplicity of the worship of God.
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