_"Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds_". Dr. JOHNSON. _Recorded by Mrs. Piozzi._ AMUSEMENTS AND HANDICRAFT Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places-- That was how, in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages. STEVENSON. WALKER, M.C. Lady Hollyhock and Her Friends. Baker. 1.25 Suggestions for making charming dollies from fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The illustrations, many in color, are attractive and explanatory, but the text must be read to the children, as it is somewhat advanced for them. GEOGRAPHY, TRAVEL, AND DESCRIPTION Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, Little frosty Eskimo, Little Turk or Japanee, O! don't you wish that you were me? . . . . . . . You have curious things to eat, (p. 41) I am fed on proper meat; You must dwell beyond the foam, But I am safe and live at home. STEVENSON. ANDREWS, JANE. The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air. Ginn. .50 These simple stories, written for the girls and boys of a generation ago, have taken their place among the charming and vivid descriptions of child-life in different lands. The round ball is the earth, and the sisters are the tribes that dwell thereon. The little book was conceived in a happy hour; its pictures are so real and so graphic, so warm and so human, that the most literal and the most imaginative of children must find in them, not only something to charm, but also to mould pleasant associations for maturer years. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. MYTHOLOGY, FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, AND FAIRY TALES And as with the toys, so with the toy-books. They exist everywhere: there is no calculating the distance through which the stories come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated, almost in their present shape, for thousands of years since, to little copper-coloured Sanscrit children, listening to their mother under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their (p. 42) Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the Northmen Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and by Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when the flocks were gathered in and the mares were picketed by the tents. THACKERAY.