Wednesday, February 2, 2011

How Our Grandfathers Lived/Google Books

Title How Our Grandfathers Lived
Authors Albert Bushnell Hart, Annie Bliss Chapman
Publisher Macmillan, 1916
Length 371 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Broad Stripes and Bright Stars: Stories of American History /Google Books

Title Broad Stripes and Bright Stars: Stories of American History
for the Children's Hour Series
May G. Quigley collection
Author Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Publisher Milton Bradley company, 1919
Length 240 pages
Click here.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Stories of the Nibelungen(Germanic/Old Norse Tales) for Young People/Project Gutenberg


Read and download here.

Excerpt:

YOUNG SIEGFRIED

In the good old days of Long Ago, when kings had absolute power over all their subjects, even in the matter of life and death, there dwelt in the city of Santum, on the beautiful Rhine River, a great and good king named Siegmund.

He was very powerful, and ruled over the kingdom of Niederland so wisely and so well that he was[8] loved and honored by all his people. He shared his throne with Siegelinda, his beautiful wife, who also was noble and kind of heart.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy(Civil War)/Google Books

Title The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy
Author Harry M. Kieffer
Published 1911
Here.
From the preface:"Several years ago the writer prepared a brief series of papers for the columns of St. Nicholas, under the title of "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy." It was thought that these sketches of army life, as seen by a boy, would prove enjoyable and profitable to children in general, and especially to the children of the men who participated in the great Civil War, on one side or the other; while the belief was entertained that they might at the same time serve to revive in the minds of the veterans themselves long-forgotten or but imperfectly remembered scenes and experiences in camp and field. In the outstart it was not the author's design to write a connected story, but rather simply to prepare a few brief and hasty sketches of army life, drawn from his own personal experience and suitable for magazine purposes. But these, though prepared in such intervals as could with difficulty be spared from the exacting duties of a busy professional life, having been so kindly received by the editors of St. Nicholas, as well as by the very large circle of readers of that excellent magazine, and the writer having been urgently pressed on all sides for more of the same kind, it was thought well to revise and enlarge the "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy," and to present them to the public in permanent book form. In the shape of a more or less connected story of army life, covering the whole period of a soldier's experience from enlistment to muster-out, and carried forward through all the stirring scenes of camp and field, it was believed that these "Recollections," in the revised form, would commend themselves not only to the children of the soldiers of the late war, but to the surviving soldiers themselves; while at the same time they would possess a reasonable interest for the general reader as well."

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Mother's List of Books for Children/Project Gutenberg

A wonderful reference for finding public domain children's books. These books are listed by age, ages two - fourteen, and topic. I've already found quite a few at Google Books for my thirteen year old, of which I'll be sharing over the next week.

Click here. HTML version is the easiest to work of off with searches - quick copy and paste.

Stories of Art and Artists/Google Books

Title Stories of Art and Artists
Author Clara Erskine Clement Waters
Publisher Ticknor and company, 1887
Length 357 pages
Click here.

This book pairs well with Garden of Praise's free art appreciation lessons(scroll all the way down to bottom at the link). This is for younger children, and has color high definition images of the many of the paintings mentioned in Clara Water's book. There are also online quizzes, worksheets, etc. and helpful links.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Rolf in the Woods/Project Gutenberg

"In this story I have endeavoured to realize some of the influences that surrounded the youth of America a hundred years ago, and made of them, first, good citizens, and, later, in the day of peril, heroes that won the battles of Lake Erie, Plattsburg, and New Orleans, and the great sea fights of Porter, Bainbridge, Decatur, Lawrence, Perry, and MacDonough.

I have especially dwelt in detail on the woodland and peace scouting in the hope that I may thus help other boys to follow the hard-climbing trail that leads to the higher uplands. "

Rolf in the Woods by Ernest Thompson Seton

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Boy's Book of Pirates/Google Books

Title Boy's Book of Pirates
Author Howard Pyle
Publisher Harper, 1908
Length 238 pages
Read here.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Theodore Roosevelt, Patriot and Statesman/Google Books

Title Theodore Roosevelt, Patriot and Statesman: The True Story of an Ideal American
Author Robert Cornelius V. Meyers
Publisher P. W. Ziegler & Co. [c1902], 1902
Length 621 pages
See here.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Free Word Processor: Jarte

We've been using this free download program for years to print copy-and-paste school materials.

"Jarte \jär · 'tay\ noun (est. 2001) 1. A free word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows. 2. A fast starting, easy to use word processor that expands well beyond the WordPad feature set. 3. A small, portable word processor whose documents are fully compatible with Word and WordPad." See more here.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bow-wow and Mew-mew(Easy Reader)/Google Books


Title Bow-wow and Mew-mew
Author Georgiana Marion Craik
Publisher Beckley-Cardy, 1914
Length 95 pages
Click here

Bow-Wow And Mew-mew is one of the few books for beginners in reading that may be classed as literature. Written in words of mostly one syllable, it has a story to tell, which is related in so attractive a manner as to immediately win the favor of young children. It teaches English and English literature to the child in the natural way: through a love for the reading matter. It is the character of story that will, in the not distant future, replace the ordinary primer or reader with detached sentences, and which seldom possesses any relation to literature.

The ultimate objects of any story can only be effected through the love for a story. The prominent point in this story is development of good character, which may well be regarded as the highest purpose of education. The transformation from bad to good traits in the dog and cat cannot but have a desirable effect on every child that reads the story. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew become dissatisfied with their home and their surroundings, and ungrateful toward their benefactress. As the story tells, "They did not find good in any thing." But after running away and suffering hunger, neglect, and bad treatment, their characters begin to change. They naturally come to reflect their mistress's goodness. They learn the value of companionship and friendship, and the appreciation of a home. However, the ethical thoughts in the story are presented without a moral. The child really lives the scenes described. He has the emotions of the characters and feels their convictions. And this determines the worth of a story as an agent in character development.

The narrative furnishes, further, the proper kind of exercise for the imagination. It affords abundant opportunity for the play of the dramatic instinct in the child, and effects a happy union of the "home world" and the " school world." The illustrations, drawn by Miss Hodge, have been planned and executed with considerable care. J. C. S.

On the Edge of Winter(Colonial Historical Fiction)/Google Books

Title On the Edge of Winter
Author Richard Markham
Publisher Dodd, Mead, and Company, publishers, 1881
Length 236 pages
Click here.

Wherein may be read how Five Boys and Five Girls ate their Thanksgiving Dinner at an Old Farm House in the Hudson Highlands. The Book records further sundry of their Doings, and some Stories and Ballads of the Early Days of our Country.


Companion books:

Around the Yule Log

Aboard the Mavis

Friday, January 14, 2011

Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights/Google Books

Title Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights
Publisher Groombridge and Sons, 1872
Click here.

Our Winter Birds[N.E. USA]: How to Know and How to Attract Them/Google Books


Title Our Winter Birds: How to Know and How to Attract Them
Author Frank Michler Chapman
Publisher D. Appleton and Company, 1918
Length 180 pages
Click here.

Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion(1357-1900)/Google Books

Title Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1357-1900)
Chaucer Society publications
Editor Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon
Publisher Pub. for the Chaucer society by K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd and by H. Frowde, 1908
Click here.


More books on Chaucer:Chaucer Society Publications

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Dooryard Folks: and, A Winter Garden/Google Books


Title Dooryard Folks: and, A Winter Garden
Author Amanda Bartlett Harris
Publisher D. Lothrop, 1883
Length 207 pages
Click here.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Australia: Our Colonies, and Other Islands of the Sea/Google Books

Title Australia: Our Colonies, and Other Islands of the Sea
Carpenter's Geographical Reader
Author Frank George Carpenter
Publisher American Book Co., 1904
Length 432 pages
Click here.


"The purpose of this book is to give the children who read it a living knowledge of Australia and the chief islands of the world, and especially those which have become colonies or dependencies of the United States. Within the past few years our own territories have been extended to the other side of the globe. We have acquired new lands with new climates, resources, and products. We have adopted into our national family millions of people belonging to races different from ours, having different customs and a different civilization. In our far-away lands the whole aspect of nature seems changed, and we seem to be in a new world. This is so not only of Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines, but also of Porto Rico and our dependent sister republic of the West Indies, the great island of Cuba.

This book aims to take the children themselves into this new world. In a personally conducted tour through the eyes of the author they travel over it, seeing our brown-skinned cousins of the several colonies as they are at home. They learn about the resources of the various islands, and of their value to the United States. They visit the people on the farms and in the factories. They spend some time in the cities and villages, and they explore the wilds, observing the wonders of plant and animal creation."