Miss Bancroft’s book of games is a volume of over four hundred and sixty pages, with twenty-three illustrations. It contains, we should say, over two thousand games classified for Elementary schools from the first to the eighth year, for High schools, for playgrounds, for gymnasiums, for boys’ and girls’ summer camps, for house parties and country clubs, for children’s parties, and for the seashore. An excellent system of classification makes it possible to classify the games in many different ways, and thus easily find those suited to one’s needs.
As story telling and playing games are blood relations on the playground, this book is to be cordially commended as an interesting and valuable contribution to the Cause.
The Normal Child and Primary Education. By Arnold L. Gesell, Ph.D., and Beatrice Chandler Gesell, Ed.B. Price, $1.25. Ginn & Company, New York.
This work, the authors tell us, is chiefly the result of contact with eager minds of young women who were preparing to teach young children.
It will interest story tellers mainly because of its extensive analysis and discussion of the child in the educational relation.
“To achieve results in literature,” it is stated, “the children must have something more than a good story: they must have a good story teller—one with quick sympathies and an intuitive knowledge of her group; one who loves the old stories, who feels the pulse of humanity throbbing through them all; whose voice is clear, flexible, interpretative; whose language is simple, direct, pictorial; who enters into a dramatic situation; who has a keen sense of humor, who is willing to sow the seed and let it develop in its own good time.” “The Normal Child” is a most helpful, illuminating, and instructive book.
The Children’s Reading. By Frances Jenkins Olcott. Price, $1.25 net. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
Miss Olcott has given us a valuable book on children’s readings. She speaks as an authority from her many years’ experience as a librarian; therein is the chief value of her book. She knows the names and authors of many of the best books for young people, and gives many valuable lists of books. The very fact that she has had to deal with so many books from without as a librarian, has probably prevented her knowing so well the inside of the book,—seeing and living with its imagery, communing with its spirit and breathing its atmosphere until it gives up its deepest meaning. Any treatment of a story that helps one to visualize, to re-create, to breathe its atmosphere and live its spirit, ought to be valuable; the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. However, her quotations from authors who have done that are many and valuable. The one on Homer’s Iliad, page 103, is especially good; but she barely mentions the Odyssey, the more interesting story to the young people. The book is conservative rather than original and creative.
Aldine First Language Book. For Grades Three and Four. By Catherine T. Bryce and Frank E. Spaulding. Price 48 cents.