SOME NURSERY BOOKS.*

AMONG the medley of new fancies—humorous, sentimental, grotesque, "precious "—that masquerade at this time of year under the insinuating domino of the nursery-book cover, it is delightful to find at least two solid and handsome volumes filled to the brink of their daintily illustrated pages with the good old nursery rhymes upon which the grandfathers and grandmothers of the present generation of babies were brought up. Of this kind is The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes, edited by Mr. Walter Jerrold, illustrated by Mr. Charles Robinson, and published by Messrs. Blackie. All the classical rhymes are in it : "The Queen of Hearts," "Simple Simon," "Little Jack Horner," "Tommy Tittle. mouse," "The House that Jack Built," 84c., to the number of three hundred and twenty pieces in all, set out with dignity in a table of contents occupying eight pages. The illustra- tions are abundant, original, and daintily amusing. They are mostly in black and white, but a few special themes are singled out for the honour of full-page pictures in delicate tints of colour, Altogether this is a very beautiful volume, as well as a very solid one; but we should say that though its contents are suitable for infant minds, its externals mark it out as more fit to lie on a drawing-room table than on the nursery floor, It has, moreover, an interesting preface addressed to elders and betters, in which the story of earlier collections of the same rhymes is told. From this we learn that the single adventure of Jack Horner which everybody knows is not really his whole history. Like other Jacks, he killed giants, and his exploits were recorded in rhymes which have vanished into oblivion. Something of the same kind has happened to "Jack and Jill," whose history ran originally to the length of fifteen stanzas, and was known in song under the title of "The Wiltshire Wedding." Considerably less magnificent than this sumptuous volume, but very charming, and several degrees nearer to the level of the nursery floor, is the pretty Mother Goose book we have received from Messrs. Dent. Here again we find the old rhymes from Halliwell's collection, and mixed up with them some nice things from other sources, such • (1) The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes. Edited by Walter Jerrold. /Us- trated by Charles Robinson. London Blackie and Son. 17a. 6d.1- (2) Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes. London : J. N. Dent and Co. rbs.3— (3) Grimm's Entry-Tales. Selected and Edited for Little Polk. Illustrated by Helen Stratton. London : Mackie and Son. [Ss. 6d.] —(4) How They Went to School. By S. R. Praeger. Same publishers. [fs. 0d.]—(b) hilt Babies: a Picture of ChGd•Life in the Far North. By Liebeth Bergh. Same publishers. [Ss. ed.]—(6) Hop-o'-my-Thumb, and other Fairy-Tales. With 30 Illustrations. ByJean Wylie. London: Grant Richards. [2s. 6d.") —(7) The Dumpy Books for Children :—Dumpy Proverbs. By Honor G. Appleton.—Litt is Yellow Wang-1o. By M. C. Bell.—Fishy- Winkle. By Jean C. Archer. Same publisher. [1s. each.3—(8) Silver Bubbles: a New Book of Nursery Rhymes. Pictures by Ruth Cobb. Verses by Richard Hunter and Edward Shirley. London : Nelson and Sons. Ps. 65.1--f9) Toe Seen the Sea, Verses and Pictures. By A. and S. Sharpley. Londun : E. Brimley Johnson. [Is. fid.]— (10) Lords and Ladies: Verses and Pictures. Same authors and publiahers. Bd.] —(11) The Bad Child's Book of Beasts. Verses by H. Belloc. Piotures by B. T. IL London : Duckworth and Co. [Is. net.]—(12)_ The Sad End of Erica's Blackamoor. py H. Claude Kempsoix. London: Edward Arnold. [Ss. lid.] —(13) Johnny Crow's Garden : a Picture•Book. Drawn by L. Leslie Brooke. London : P. Warne and Co. [2s. 6d.]—(14) Nobody Knows! Illustrated by Madeline Hall. Same publishers. [2s. net.1—(L5) Tom Catapus and Potilar: a Tale of Ancient Egypt. By Lily Schofield. Sams publiahers. gd, — l6) Tim and the Dusty Man. By Mrs. Ernest Ames. fldon Grant Richards. 3s. ed.]—(17) The Child's Book of Knowledge. By Harry Rountree. illus- trated.. Same publisher. [Ss. lid.)—(18) My Book of True Stories: a Picture. Book for Little Folk. London : Blackie and Son. t2s.]-19) A Picture-Book of Animals; or, Walks and Talks in Jungleland. Same ku bahera. (20) The One Strand River, and other Fairy-Tales. By Mrs. H. P. HalL London : David Nutt. [62.]—(21) Mr. Punch's New Book for Children. Edited and 1141StAPted bjqUirles Pear, London Punch Wks. Lsa..)

as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." The pictures, both coloured and black and white, are admirable, and we particularly commend the choice of a comfortable type of child for repeated representation.

The thin quarto volume of fairy-tales from Grimm, with bright-coloured illustrations by Miss Helen Stratton, is alto- gether for the nursery. It tells in large, plain type, without any decorative pretension, the good old tales of "Hansel and Gretel," "The Sleeping Beauty," " Rumpelstiltzskin," and some others not quite so well known, though not less deserving of popularity, such as "The Travelling Musicians." One is confident that this book will be thoroughly welcome upstairs, and that small people will settle down with it happily in nice fireside corners on the real nursery floor. Two charming books that will be equally acceptable to mothers and children are Miss Praeger's How They Went to School, and Miss Bergh's Hill Babies. Both books combine clever and pretty pictures of child.life with simple and appropriate letterpress. They have nothing in common but their merits, and a kind of sympathetic resemblance in the tone of colour and scale of size used throughout. The "Hill Babies" are little Norwegians, and the illustrated story shows us how they live and dress at their farm in the far North. Pigs, sheep, cows, cats, a homely mother, and a homely maid come into the tale, and all are touched with an exquisite tenderness that does not, however, strike us as inconsistent with truth. Hal and Kitty, going to school, meet with—and make—all the innocent adventures that most children have had some time or other, and their broad little figures and chubby faces are drawn with much humour as well as kindliness. We recommend both these books warmly.

"The Dumpy Books" never want any recommending. They come of a family with a popular tradition, and their modest striped covers are irresistible. But here we may notice four among those prepared for the coming Christmas : a "Larger Dumpy Book" in mauve, containing Hop-o'-my- Thumb and a good selection of other old stories of the same kind, with black-and-white illustrations in a rather angular manner, which adds terror to the dragons and the giants, if it robs the ladies and princesses of some of the charm that might be thought their due ; and three "Little Dumpy Books" in green,—Fishy-Winkle, the rhymed story (very funny) of some children with Chinese names and costumes who run away from an apparently Irish home and fish up a little green mer-baby, with whom and a hideous red-yellow "haddock-cat" they have a "good time "; Little Yellow Wang-lo, who, in plain prose, goes forth to sell ducks and buy a pig, and realises, after many reverses, a magnificent fortune in buried gold ; and finally, Dumpy Proverbs, not so exciting as the stories, but useful for warning and instruction, and, of course, cleverly illustrated. Silver Bubbles, with pictures—very good and attractive—by Miss Ruth Cobb, and verses—also good and attractive—by Mr. Hunter and Mr. Shirley, is deecribed as "a new book of nursery rhymes," and it might have been described as a book of new nursery rhymes. It is excellently devised for the real amusement of small children. And the same may be said cordially of two other smaller, but not less pretty, 'volumes of verses and pictures called I've Seen the Sea and Lords and Ladies.

The books noticed so far are all more or less of the "pretty" class. They appeal to the public chiefly by charm, exterior or interior, or both. Books appealing to the sense of humour are not less abundant. And of these an excellent one is The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, with verses by Mr. Belloc, and pictures by "B. T. B.." of which a new edition now appears at a shilling. The title is perhaps somewhat affronting ; but the opening stanzas explain the affront away :— "I call you bad, my little child, U pon the title-page, Because a manner rude and wild Is common at your age.

The Moral of this priceless work (If rightly understood)

Will make you—from a little Turk—

U nnaturally good."

Accordingly the reader is exhorted not to imitate, "as evil children do," the hog, the puppy-dog, the ape, the bear, the kangaroo. The spirit of very clever but inoffensive caricature animates all the illustrations, and we trust that this amusing book, already a well-loved friend in many nurseries, will in its shilling edition find new worlds to conquer. The humour of The Sad End of Erica's Blackamoor, a thin, fiat book in quarto boards, is of the subtle kind which exactly imitates the way of the child in telling and illustrating the tale that is to amuse the child. The letterpress is made to resemble the irregular printed-letter hand used by very

young children, and sometimes by grown-up people in corre- spondence with children. The style is the naive style of the nursery, and the pictures are a masterly rendering in sharp black and white of the ideas of drawing that belong to the same phase of life. It is all very well done, and the book will certainly afford much amusement to grown-up children,

whether or not it meets the aspirations of those who are not grown-up. In Johnny Crow's Garden, a clever book with

a most attractive and decorative red cover, animals are

amusingly treated, and their stories are connected by a Blight thread of rhymed narrative. Nobody Knows! is a pretty nonsense-book, the purport of which is best explained by its own Envoi :— " New faces in old places, New bodies in old clothes, How they got into them 'Nobody knows !!!"

The rhymes are the old ones,—" Polly, put the kettle on," and so forth. But birds and cats and frogs figure in the pictures instead of human beings.

Miss Lily Schofield makes an original departure in giving us a tale of ancient Egypt, in which the chief actors are a tom- cat, a crocodile, and an Egyptian boy, "Young Potiphar." The illustrations are severely Egyptian, and would not be out of place in the British Museum. The rhymes are lively and

pointed, and the title is Tom Catapus and Potiphar. It is a book to read through once and enjoy. A book of simple

nonsense, made attractive by its very bright colours and the humorous faces of the creatures in it, is Mrs. Ernest Aines's

Tim and the Dusty Man. The Child's Book of Knowledge com- bines, as its title suggests, information with nonsense, and reason with an occasional rhyme. It teaches by means of funny full-page pictures the meaning of a considerable number of important words. My Book of True Stories has serious tales, chiefly from history. It is well illustrated, the type is good, and the binding and paper are substantial and pleasant without being much too good for daily wear and tear. Of the same excellently useful class is Messrs. Blackie's bright-blue Picture-Book of Animals. This volume has the pleasant sub- title, "Walks and Talks in Jungleland," and its coloured pictures of nice brown bears, striped zebra, and hunting lion are delightful. We are glad to come upon one volume of new real fairy-stories. Such is Mrs. Hall's The One Strand River, and other Fairy-Tales. The vein is romantic, sentimental, and moral. Witches, princes, princesses, talking cats, geese, and flowers figure in it, and one goes through all the usual agonising experiences of the fantastic romance, to wake up to the usual delightful surprises by which enchanted innocence is rewarded.

In the heap of books before us—only a small portion of the entire output of children's books of the season—we have so far found at least one good example of every different kind. But Mr. Punch's New Book for Children, which we have reserved till the end, includes all kinds within its own pair of boards. It is dedicated " to children who can read, and to children who can't read." It has stories for the one sort, and pictures for both : weird scenes in which elves " prank " about in the moonlight; character dog sketches ; reminiscences of the circus; a sketch of a juvenile evening party, with coloured pictures of all the amusements ; doll-stories, dream-stories. In short, it is an excellent miscellany of very lively matter.