Showing posts with label Children's Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children's Literature. Show all posts

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."

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 1, 2011

The King and Queen of Hearts/Google Books


Title The King and Queen of Hearts
Authors Charles Lamb, Edward Verrall Lucas
Illustrated by William Mulready
Publisher Methuen, 1809
Length 15 pages
Click here.

Fully illustrated and written in old English. The "S's are written as "F's".

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Basket Woman: a Book of Fanciful Indian Tales for Children

Title The Basket Woman: a Book of Fanciful Tales for Children

Author Mary Hunter Austin
Publisher Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1904
Length 220 pages
Click here.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gabriel and the Hour Book/Google Books

Title Gabriel and the Hour Book

Author Evaleen Stein
Publisher L.C. Page & Company, 1906
Length 173 pages
Click here


Summary:
Yesterday's Classics, 2005 - Fiction - 100 pages
Relates the story of the making of an "hour book" as a wedding gift from King Louis of France to Lady Anne of Brittany and the good fortune it brought to little Gabriel, Brother Stephen's color grinder. Inspired by the bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds Gabriel brings into the workroom, Brother Stephen conceives a new idea for an illuminated border. Instead of painting the border with scrolls and birds and flowers in the conventional way, he would decorate the book with borders of gold on which he would paint in realistic fashion the meadow wildflowers, and bees and butterflies, and all the little flying creatures. As Brother Stephen's color grinder, Gabriel makes the ink, grinds the gold, gathers the flowers, and prepares the colors for him. After the book is completed, Gabriel slips into the book a sheet on which he has penned a prayer to Lady Anne: "I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre's castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve." How his prayer is answered unfolds in the ensuing chapters. Evaleen Stein brings the medieval world to life for younger students through her stories set in the Middle Ages. A century ago when this book was first published, a reviewer in the Louisville Daily Courier wrote, "No works in juvenile fiction contain so many of the elements that stir the hearts of children and grown-ups as well as do the stories soadmirably told by this author."

Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic /Project Gutenberg

Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic by Olive Thorne Miller, 1906

Short stories for the very young.

Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls/Internet Archives

Poulsson, Emilie, and others, 1916
Click here.
Short stories and fables.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Twenty-Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls(short classics)/Project Gutenburg

Twenty-Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls, 1921.

Click here.

Includes authors such as: Hans Christian Andersen, Rev. Jay T. Stocking, Howard Pyle, and Joseph Jacobs.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Baby World Stories, Rhymes, and Pictures for Little Folks/Google Boooks

Title Baby World Stories, Rhymes, and Pictures for Little Folks
Author Mary Mapes Dodge
Published 1886
Overview

Written in syllabication for early readers.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Out and About: a Boy's Adventures, Written for Adventurous Boys/Google Books

To help and teach, to amuse, and to silently instill love and faith, boldness of heart, trust, and honesty in such boys, then—to do some little good to every reader—is the aim of this book. Each incident described is true; exaggeration and straining for effect have been kept quite out of our pages, and the dearest wish of the author is that the book may serve the purpose it was written for.

Title Out and About: a Boy's Adventures, Written for Adventurous Boys
Author James Hain Friswell
Illustrated by George Cruikshank
Publisher Groombridge and Sons, 1860
Length 326 pages

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan/Google Books

Title Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan
Author Richard Gordon Smith
Illustrated by Mo-No-Yuki
Publisher A. & C. Black, 1908
Length 360 pages
Overview

Monday, November 1, 2010

Irish Fairy Tales/Google Books

Title Irish Fairy Tales
Author James Stephens
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham
Publisher The Macmillan company, 1920
Length 314 pages
Overview

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists/Google Books

Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists
Author Elbert Hubbard
Publisher The Roycrofters, 1902
Overview

A little wordy and eccentric, but interesting back stories. If you are studying the Arts and Crafts movement, Hubbard was influential in the United States.

More about The Roycrafters here.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Garden Swing, and Other Stories(Reader)/Google Books

Title The Garden Swing, and Other Stories:
Publisher T. Nelson and Sons, 1885
Overview
Appears to be third to fourth grade level reading

Monday, September 13, 2010

The Ice King, and the Sweet South Wind/Google Books

Fanciful stories for young children which teach morals.

Title: The Ice King, and the Sweet South Wind
Author: Caroline Hyde Butler Laing
Publisher: Phillips, Sampson & Co., 1853
Length 176 pages
Overview

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Robinson Crusoe Silhouettes/Google Books

Title Robinson Crusoe silhouettes: the complete story of Robinson Crusoe in silhouettes
Author Daniel Defoe
Publisher A. Flanagan Company, 1922
Digitized Jul 30, 2009
Overview