The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 6, March, 1885Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 6, March, 1885
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
ALL THE YEAR ROUND By American Authors and Artists. Illustrated. Boston:
D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.50. Of all the collections of stories for
juvenile readers that have come under our notice the present season we
have seen nothing to compare with this in point of variety, interest and
abundance. In its beautifully printed pages provision is made for every
variety of taste; there are stories for the boys of hunting, and
fishing, and camping out; stories of adventures on land and water;
stories for the girls of school and play; stories of oldtime life of the
days of our grandfathers and grandmothers; stories of eminent men and
women, and mingled with choice poems by popular authors. Altogether it
is one of the most charming compilations of the year.
HOW THEY WENT TO EUROPE. By Margaret Sidney. Illustrated. Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00. Everything that Margaret Sidney writes is
sure of an audience, and though most of her books are prepared for the
delectation of the young, they have an equal charm for all classes of
readers. Some of her stories, in a household of children, have been
literally "read to pieces," and judging from the frequency with which
the tattered leaves are brought out, some delightful sort of flavor
hangs round them still. The title of the present book might be aptly
extended so as to read _How They went to Europe, and yet didn't, go to
Europe_, for the journey made by the little party of tourists is in plan
something like _The Voyage around My Room_, which everybody has read.
Two or three bright girls, who are disappointed because they can't go
abroad with more fortunate relatives, determine to form a club in which
they shall, to use a common phrase, "go through the motions" of going;
that is, they shall at their regular meetings follow on the map, and by
guide books and accounts of travel, the exact route taken by those who
are really journeying. The idea takes, and the club is organized; other
members are taken in, and before the next season it has so increased in
size as to include the best young people in town and render a change of
place of meeting necessary from private parlors to a large public hall.
Lectures and stereopticon exhibitions are added, and some of the more
enthusiastic members, after a course of French travel, form a
supplementary club for the study of French. The story is brightly and
naturally told and in a way that will be certain to bear fruit in the
way of other clubs of the kind, wherever it is read. Margaret Sidney's
stories have this peculiarity, that aside from their fascinating
qualities of dialogue and narrative they leave something to be
remembered. The aim of the author is not obtruded, but its spirit is
there and the mind is roused to thought and action. What child can ever
forget that most delightful of juvenile stories, _The Five Little
Peppers_, or the entertaining narrative of _What the Seven Did_, or the
author's latest of books for young readers, _Who Told It to Me_, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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