The following list of novels, tales, and prose dramas is offered to the young reader by way of suggestion and not as a “prescribed” list. Like the other lists in this book it omits many masterpieces that will occur immediately to the mind of the older reader, and it includes some books that are not masterpieces. The notes, or “evaluations” as the librarians call them, are arbitrary, indicating the private opinions of the present Guide; they are sometimes extensive in the case of less important writers and are omitted in the cases of the great masters. The way to use the list is to run over it from time to time until you form a bowing acquaintance with the names of a few authors and some of their books. One title or another is likely to attract you or excite your curiosity. If you follow the impulse of that aroused curiosity and go get the book, the list will have served its purpose. EDMOND FRANÇOIS VALENTIN ABOUT (1828-85). _Le Roi des Montagnes._ Easy to read in French, and to be found translated into English. ÆSOP. _Fables._ Found in many editions, some especially selected and illustrated for children. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-88). _An Old-Fashioned Girl._ _Little Women._ _Little Men._ _Work._ _Jack and Jill._ _Jo’s Boys._ Miss Alcott has always been a favorite of young people. Her faithful and wholesome stories of life in a New England country town entitle her to place in the delightful company of Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mrs. Mary Wilkins-Freeman, and Miss Alice Brown. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907). _The Story of a Bad Boy._ _Marjorie Daw._ A delicate romancer with subtle humor and a turn for paradoxical ingenious fooling which is characteristic in one form or another of American writers as unlike as Frank R. Stockton, Edward Everett Hale, and Mark Twain. JAMES LANE ALLEN. _Flute and Violin._ _The Blue Grass Region._ _A Kentucky Cardinal._ _Aftermath._ HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (1805-75). _Fairy Tales._ To be found in _Everyman’s Library_. This collection of books, published at fifty cents the volume by E. P. Dutton & Co., is perhaps the best ever grouped in an inexpensive edition. It will be frequently referred to in this and succeeding lists. Most of the books in it are worth reading and no doubt worth buying, and this is true of most “Universal Libraries,” “Libraries of the World’s Best Literature,” “Five-Foot Book Shelves,” etc. But for variety’s sake one would wish not to have all the books on one’s shelves in the same style of type and binding. And in general it is better to buy the book one wants, distinguished by its title and author, than to take as a whole any editor’s or publisher’s collection of “classics.” RASMUS BJÖRN ANDERSON. _Norse Mythology._ The simplest form in which to read the stories of the Eddas and Scandinavian myths. It is at once a lore book for students and a wonder book for young and old.