How to Buy a Child a Book

IT GOES without saying that if you know the child and his interests you won’t have any trouble buying a book for him. This article is for the Aunts, Uncles, and Old School Friends who wander nervously around a bookstore knowing nothing about the child except his age. They buy what seems to them a splendid book, enticingly illustrated, and long afterward discover that the child was bored by it. The reason is simple. The application of adult standards in judging juveniles is impractical to the point of being grotesque. No normal child — so far as he knows — cares about fine writing, documented facts, or expanding his consciousness. He wants to be entertained, and an interesting book, to a child, is synonymous with action.

That doesn’t necessarily mean cliff-hanging, either, but it does mean something exciting happening all the time. Children are interested in food, in clothes, and in factual detail, but these must be an integral part of the action. A ten-page description of a picnic in which nothing happens, or seems likely to happen, is not action just because it’s a picnic. And it isn’t fun for the young reader merely because the children in the story are having a good time. Somebody had better get into difficulties — and quick — or the book will go under the bed. Also, a thin mystery about an old trunk which crops up occasionally through a welter of pointless detail about bringing in wood or setting the table, while it may excite the heroine of the book, will not excite your niece. Your nephew, when he has finished reading Huckleberry Finn, will know a great deal about the Mississippi River, but it will not occur to him that he was taught something. A child who is too aware of instruction is a bored child — and there is nothing more stultifying than boredom.

It’s a good idea to try reading a few lines of dialogue aloud, too, and see whether they could possibly be spoken by a normal human being. When dialogue is stilted and unnatural, children are seldom aware of the fact, provided the story has real interest; but lively, natural dialogue will add a great deal to the book, whether the children know it or not.

Aside from amusing the child, — and any parent knows that this is an end in itself, - juvenile books have the additional task of establishing, permanently, an attitude toward reading. So the average juvenile, if it is interesting, is more valuable than it may appear to the adult eye. If your Patricia won’t read Dickens, never mind — as long as she will curl up with some story about life in a girls’ boarding school. She is acquiring the habit of reading, and Dickens will come later.

It should not be inferred that we are against the improved mind. On the contrary, we are all for it. But education — out of school, at least — cannot be plastered on like a poultice. Children will absorb a bewildering amount of information if their interest has been stimulated — but the interest comes first.

And that reminds us of the problem of biographies for the young. The tendency to whitewash even the childhood of great men and women did not die out with Parson Weems, and seems to us to defeat its own purpose. Children hate paragons of infant virtue. We don’t suggest that an author should explain to the youngsters that Ben Franklin was quite a gay dog in his day, or go into the disillusioning fact that George Washington’s false teeth clicked when he talked, and frequently fell out. But surely, no child’s moral nature will be permanently ruined by the interesting discovery that the Great were capable, in their childhood, of behaving like children. So, if a biography is required, try to choose one in which the subject is not a complete reincarnation of Elsie Dinsmore.

Anyway, Aunts, Uncles, and Old School Friends are in luck just now. The book lists provide a really fascinating variety of lively, interesting books in settings ranging from New Guinea to Palestine. But there are always recognizable characters with whom any child can identify himself. There are even a couple of books deliberately designed for instruction, which hold their readers’ attention like detective stories.

Margaret Wise Brown may have written The Golden Egg Book for Easter, but in our house at least , it looks like a year-rounder, and we anticipate reading it during the next blizzard. This almost puts it on a par with The Night Before Christmas, which we have read on demand — after conquering some adult queasiness—on the most sweltering August afternoons. The Golden Egg Book is, fortunately, easy to memorize, and the two-year-old is able to recite it to himself.

Sing, Sang, Sung and Willie, by Peggy Gnlick, is the story of three pandas and a black bear, which received extravagant reviews in the local press. The two-year-old remarked sourly, at the end, “Is that all?” but his sister, whose point of view is more sophisticated, said she enjoyed it because she liked to look at pandas. Anyway, we find ourselves reading it with painful regularity.

On the subject of Oley: The Sea Monster, by Marie Hall Ets, there has also been a difference of opinion. We thought that this story of the baby seal who was taken to Chicago and ultimately turned loose in Lake Michigan (where he breathed on the feet of a lone bather) was very funny. For this we were sharply taken to task. Our inexorable fouryear-old informed us that it was not in the least funny because the seal had been separated from his mother. However, it has a happy ending and our child seems to find the story exciting, not to say poignant. We are happy to read it to her at regular intervals.

Helen and Alf Evers have added Sloppy Joe to their galaxy of reformed animals, and he occupies a place of honor beside “Copy-kitten,” “Fussbunny,” “Chatterduck,” and the rest. Incidentally, Pelagie Doane has compiled an anthology of poems called Brother, Baby andI, which has reduced the young in the house to a startling mush of family affection. The poems are concerned with such universal subjects as rising, dressing, eating, flowers, brothers and sisters, dogs, picnics, and going to bed. Like all Pelagie Doane’s illustrations, the pictures resemble children as they would be if they were always washed and tidy, in their best moods, and, apparently, as they see themselves.

This ought to be a fine summer for the six-totenners. Frequently they have seemed to us the stepchildren of the juvenile world, but on this occasion at least, we are happy with our vision of thousands of skinny-legged youngsters sprawled on beaches or in the long grass of the back yard, lost to the world.

First of all comes Grosset and Dunlap’s continuation of their “Illustrated Junior Library,” with the lovely old classics. This time it is Little Men and Little Women, most beautifully done, and about which no more need be said.

William Pène du Bois has written a charming book called The Twenty-one Balloons. It deals with the adventures of Professor William Waterman Sherman, who left San Francisco on August 15, 1883, in a balloon. How his balloon was destroyed by a sea gull, and how he became involved in the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa, make a fascinating story which includes such pleasant, essentials as diamond mines, desert islands, and lyric improvisations on the theme of “What would you do if you had all the money in the world?”

Betty MacDonald’s Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is equally satisfactory — admittedly to our astonishment. We were put off by the title, and while yielding to no one in our enjoyment of The Egg and I, we have a tendency to shy away from writers for adults who suddenly begin to write for children. We might have known, however, that anyone who could recount such energetic, bawdy stories about her incredible neighbors could apply an equally enthusiastic technique in telling stories for children. There is a solid authenticity about these tales which indicates that they were told to children — probably several hundred times. Mrs. MacDonald is performing a public service in giving them a wider audience.

Another writer who has not succumbed to coyness or intellectual anemia is Frances Frost. We were terrified when her book came, for we love her poetry. We needn’t have worried. Miss Frost’s Windy Foot at the County Fair is superb. It is, in fact, one of the loveliest juveniles it has been our pleasure to read, and a fine example of Americana. It has warmth, vitality, humor, and the exquisite precision of style which marks her poetry, but what is more to the point, it will fascinate any child from six to twelve. Consider it — a birthday pony, a delightfull family, a bully, two thundering good fist fights, a terrific matter of a doll (and we mean terrific) and a pony race — all set against the thrilling background of a typical American county fair. The plot is skillfully handled with a mounting, almost unbearable suspense, and there is not one detail in it which could fail to delight a child. The book is for boys or girls — and happy reading to them.

We liked Dot for Short, too, by Frieda Friedman, a book suitable for seven-to-twelves. Unlike most little girls in fiction when they are both shy and poor, Dot is entirely tolerable. She is not misunderstood. She is not always suffering. She does not think nobody loves her—on the contrary she has a large, cheerful family whom she adores, and who return her affection. The book is set in good big type to make things easier for the younger set, who are not entirely at home in print.

Patty Paints a Picture, by Laura Bannon, and The Little Farm in the Big City, by Erick Berry, are the books which we considered such excellent examples of instruction without pain. Patty’s efforts to paint her kitten, which must begin with her really seeing it the way it is, are skillfully woven in with her adventures in getting it in and out of the art museum. And The Little Farm in the Big City is a warming account of how a neighborhood became acquainted with itself. The story is liberally interlarded with practical gardening hints.

We have, in the past, taken a dim view of books which deal with foreign lands. Now we must swallow our words, for this spring we have received a collection of books whose heroes and heroines range delightfully over the globe, never losing their immediate interest or sacrificing story to local color. Adventure in Palestine, by Judith Ish-Kishor, is a splendid idea, beautifully carried out. The setting is modern Palestine, and the protagonists are a young Jewish boy, his Arab and his English friend. The adventures of this unlikely triumvirate are swift-paced, exciting, and never artificial, though, as adults, we must confess that the part we liked best was when they were all three in the movies looking at Ingrid Bergman.

Eight Hours to Solo, by Henry B. Lent, is the account of a sixteen-year-old - and don’t think the ten-year-olds won’t love it—who has toiled and saved to be able to take flying lessons and become a civilian pilot. There is no plot, only straight reporting about the lessons — but it is very superior reporting with natural dialogue and expert characterization. It places little emphasis on “the wild blue yonder,” and a great deal on solid, sensible mechanics.

The Silver Robin, by Dean Marshall, is a full-length book about a foolhardy young robin — an idea we should ordinarily regard with horror. The Silver Robin fooled us. It is unexpected, interesting, and is unlike most books of its kind in that the blending of fact and fantasy has a quality so natural that one scarcely notices which is which.

The Rain Forest, by Armstrong Sperry, is set in New Guinea, a locale which in many families has become as familiar as the back yard. The story takes place in 1940, but the adventures of Chad Powell, who treks through the forest among the alligators and cannibals, are timeless.

Flying Correspondent, by Henry Gregor Felsen, also deals with life in the island paradises, only his story is laid in 1945, when things were even hotter. The story of the reporter for a Marine publication who falls into the hands of the Japanese and is saved by the atomic bomb is wildly exciting, and probably not a bit more implausible than the things that really happened. We particularly enjoyed the dialogue, which was amusing and natural, and a great improvement on the heroics to which we were accustomed when the Boy Allies were at Liége.

Ordinarily child life in ancient China stimulates us, and all the local young public, to heights of ennui, but The Secret of the Porcelain Fish, by Margery Evernden, seems to have gone over very well. Perhaps it is the realistic and resourceful nature of its hero, Yuan Fu, or his quite sensational adventures which focus on a jade amulet. Or perhaps they were simply interested in the manufacture of porcelain. Anyway, it has received their accolade, and ours, in consequence.

Sons of the African Veld, by Charles Hoppe, is an interesting and well-written story of a fourteenyear-old American boy and his two best friends—• both of whom are sons of Zulu chieftains. There are spies, a hair-raising witch doctor, a cave, and hidden treasure, and there isn’t a dull moment in the book. What more could any boy ask?

Adventure North, by R. G. Emery, will appeal to all the Boy Scouts for its hearty, masculine account of camping, woodcraft, and plenty of excitement in post-war Alaska. The two young heroes are real boys, and the local guide, alone, would make the book. The dialogue is exceptionally good.

In Jane, by Jean Gould, we have a charming biography of Jane Austen which will be excellent reading for high school students. The interest holds up throughout the book, and Jane Austen’s personal charm has been caught without losing sight of the fact that she was human. The period is actually presented without being dull.

Closer to home is Willow Hill, by Phyllis A. Whitney, which received the award of the Youth Today contest. The story is set in a small town which, to its well-bred horror, is invaded by a colony of Negroes. The writing is competent, and the timely plot is intelligently devised. The heroine is a high school girl, and the atmosphere seems authentic.