Most of the books spoken of in this chapter ought to be read aloud. They are generally called children's stories, but without exception they are also books that are loved and keenly enjoyed by older people. You will not need to think of giving them up when you grow older. They really belong to all ages. If you take the trouble to learn how to read aloud well, perhaps you may be the first to read _Alice in Wonderland_ to some small person, younger than you are. It is great pleasure to introduce anyone to a really delightful book. _The Golden Age_ and _The Wind in the Willows_ are two stories written for boys and girls by Kenneth Grahame. The first story is about Harold, Charlotte, Edward, Selina, and the boy who tells the story. They lived with their uncles and aunts in a small town or village. The children, perhaps, were rather lonely, but they made games and adventures for themselves, and it is pleasant to read about them. They had pets like many other children, and they made games from the books they were reading, like _The Arabian Nights_, and the _Story of Ulysses_, and _King Arthur and his Round Table_. _The Golden Age_ is an English story. It is one of the books {100} that will tell you accurately and delightfully of the lives of boys and girls who live in the country in England, in the same way that _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ tell us about boys in the United States. But, of course, we know that all boys in the States do not live as Tom and Huckleberry did. Girls and boys in England live in different ways also. It depends a good deal on the part of the country the author is writing about and on the circumstances of the families to which the boys and girls belong. Miss L. M. Montgomery's stories of Prince Edward Island in the same way tell a good deal about the lives of boys and girls in Canada. _The Wind in the Willows_ is a wise, delightful and amusing story about animals,--a mole, a rabbit, a water rat, a badger, an otter, a toad, hedgehogs, field mice, stoats and weasels. We hear a good deal about birds too, especially swallows. Toad, Badger, Mole and Water Rat were great friends, and we are as much interested in their doings as if they were friends of ours as well.