“I wish it were possible to send you our little six-year children to read for you from these splendid little journals. Their progress in three months has been remarkable. Our work in reading is the wonder of this city and Portland, and we owe these excellent results to you for furnishing us such bright and entertaining papers. W. A. WETZELL, _Supt. of City Schools, E. Portland, Ore_” ====== The July WIDE AWAKE gives to its subscribers a fine photogravure of French’s famous statue of the Minute Man at Concord, Mass. It accompanies the stirring ballad of “The Minute Men” by Margaret Sidney, commemorative of “the Shot Heard Round the World.” ====== The Southern custom of “Strawberry Day” is celebrated in a poem in the July WIDE AWAKE by Susan Coolidge; the large strawberry-growers of some sections having established the beautiful observance of giving the first day’s pickings to the sick and the poor. THE HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY. =$5.00 a Year, 50 cts. a Number.= The Choicest Works of Popular Authors, issued monthly. The works issued in this library are uniformly of a high standard and may well come under that class of literature styled “home fiction,” a literature, that, while free from the flashy, sensational effect of much of the fiction of to-day, is, nevertheless, brilliant in style, fresh and strong in action, and of absorbing interest. It is a class that all the young folks, as well as the fathers and mothers and older brothers and sisters, may read with profit as well as great pleasure. =1. THE PETTIBONE NAME, by Margaret Sidney=, author of _The Five Little Peppers_, etc. It is a delightful story of New England life and manners, sparkling in style, bright and effective in incident, and of intense interest. There has been no recent figure in American fiction more clearly or skilfully drawn than Miss Judith Pettibone. Most of the characters of the book are such as may be met with in any New England village. =2. MY GIRLS, by Lida A. Churchill.= A story of four ambitious girls. Their struggles to realize their ambitions and their trials and successes, make a story of intense interest. =3. WITHIN THE SHADOW, by Dorothy Holroyd.= “The most successful book of the year.” “The plot is ingenious, yet not improbable, the character drawing strong and vigorous, the story throughout one of brilliancy and power.” “The book cannot help making a sensation.”—_Boston Transcript._ =4. FAR FROM HOME.= From the German of Johannes Van Derval. Translated by =Kathrine Hamilton=. A fascinating story of life and travel in foreign lands. =5. GRANDMOTHER NORMANDY, by the author of Silent Tom.= The story is fascinatingly told. The character of Grandmother Normandy, stern, relentless and unforgiving, almost to the last, is strongly drawn, and the author has shown much skill in the construction of the story.