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AN HISTORICAL READING LIST FOR CHILDREN

"Don't stop (I say) to explain that Hebe was (for once) the legitimate daughter of Zeus and, as such, had the privilege to draw wine for the Gods. Don't even stop, just yet, to explain who the Gods were. Don't discourse on amber, otherwise ambergris; don't explain that 'gris' in this connection doesn't mean 'grease'; don't trace it through the Arabic into Noah's Ark; don't prove its electrical properties by tearing up paper into little bits and attracting them with the mouth-piece of your pipe rubbed on your sleeve. Don't insist philologically that when every shepherd 'tells his tale' he is not relating an anecdote but simply keeping 'tally' of his flock. Just go on reading, as well as you can, and be sure that when the children get the thrill of the story, for which you wait, they will be asking more questions, and pertinent ones, than you are able to answer.—("On the Art of Reading for Children," by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.)

The Days Before History

"How the Present Came From the Past," by Margaret E. Wells, Volume I.

How earliest man learned to make tools and build homes, and the stories he told about the fire-makers, the sun and the frost. A simple, illustrated account of these things for children.

"The Story of Ab," by Stanley Waterloo.

A romantic tale of the time of the cave-man. (A much simplified edition of this for little children is "Ab, the Cave Man" adapted by William Lewis Nida.)