What Shall We Read to the Children? (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1915 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII BUYING THE LIBRARY It is now time for the list of books which are to be bought for the nursery bookshelf. Used as I am to the task, it is always difficult to come down to the positiveness of a short list, because of the necessary exclusion of fine books which it hurts one to leave out. The list must be short to be practical, since the average father of these expensive children will be unable to spend many dollars a year on their library, and of course those dollars must be made to buy the richest library possible. I shall name more titles than this "average" family could afford, but few people are entirely out of reach of public libraries, which will lend what one cannot own. Suppose one has a number of poetry collections from which to choose. All are so well selected that it is hard to say that one is better than another in quality. We must first see whether these collections practically duplicate one another, or whether it is necessary to buy two or more in order to cover all the varieties of poetry we wish to give the children. We will next let the price question help us decide. Here is Number One costing $2 and very similar, except for unnecessarily costly make-up, to Number Two at $1.25. Number Three is as well selected as Number Two and is, moreover, a larger collection. But Number Three is printed on poorer paper than Number Two (and will therefore wear out faster), its type is rather forbiddingly fine, and there are no illustrations. A poetry collection does not need illustrations, but those in Number Two are quaint and interesting so that they really add to the value of the book. Collection Number Four costs only 75 cents, but it has less than half as many poems as Number Two, at $1.25; Number Five is too bulky; Number Six is very poorl...