Juvenile Fiction Books

Preface. In the world's history, there is no more striking example of heroic bravery and firmness than that afforded by the people of the province of Poitou, and more especially of that portion of it known as La Vendee, in the defence of their religion and their rights as free men. At the commencement of the struggle they were almost unarmed, and the subsequent battles were fought by the aid of... more...

One day, many years ago, a brig cast off from her moorings, and sailed from a British port for the Polar Seas. That brig never came back. Many a hearty cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the vessel left Old England, and steered her course into the unknown regions of the far north. But no cheer ever greeted her return;... more...

CHAPTER I LOST IN THE BIG CITY It was early Spring. A warm sun shone down upon the city street. On the edge of the narrow brick sidewalk a little girl was sitting. Her gingham dress was old and shabby. The short, brown coat had lost all its buttons, and a rusty pin held it together. A faded blue cap partly covered her brown hair, which hung in short, loose curls around her face. She had been sitting... more...

A LITTLE GENTLEMAN All the four-footed folk in the neighborhood agreed that Dickie Deer Mouse was well worth knowing. Throughout Pleasant Valley there was no one else so gentle as he. To be sure, Jasper Jay wore beautiful—perhaps even gaudy—clothes; but his manners were so shocking that nobody would ever call him a gentleman. As for Dickie Deer Mouse, he was always tastefully dressed in fawn color... more...

ONCE upon a time, when it was early summer in the Big Deep Woods, the Hollow Tree people and Jack Rabbit went over to spend the day with Mr. Turtle, who lives in a very nice stone house which he built himself on the edge of the Wide Blue Water. Mr. Turtle fishes a good deal, and makes most of his living that way, and knows all the best places, so when his friends came he said that perhaps they would... more...

CLYTIE. LYTIE was a beautiful little water nymph who lived in a cave at the bottom of the sea. The walls of the cave were covered with pearls and shells. The floor was made of sand as white as snow. There were many chairs of amber with soft mossy cushions. On each side of the cave-opening was a great forest of coral. Back of the cave were Clytie’s gardens. Here were the sea anemones, starfish and all... more...

PREFACE These lectures have been given perhaps half a dozen times, in England, in Switzerland and in Germany. On allowing them to appear in print I should perhaps apologize to my readers for the somewhat free and familiar style in which parts of them are written; but even if I had the time to recast them into a more serious form I should be unwilling to do so, for there is surely enough ponderous... more...

On the east coast of England, there is a small hamlet surrounded by high sand-hills, with scarcely a blade of grass or even a low shrub to be seen in its neighbourhood. The only vegetable productions, indeed, which can flourish in that light soil, are the pale green rushes, whose roots serve to bind the sand together, and to prevent the high easterly winds, so constantly blowing on that coast,... more...

I. UNWELCOME NEWS. It was the prettiest homestead in all the township, everybody said, and it had the prettiest name. It stood a mile or so beyond Pendlepoint on the farther side of the river, from which it was separated by a broad meadow, where in the summer time the sleek kine stood udder-deep in cowslips and clover. It was a long, low, comfortable-looking house, hidden by lovely creeping plants, and... more...

I HOW DON QUIXOTE WAS KNIGHTED Some three or four hundred years ago, there lived in sunny Spain an old gentleman named Quixada, who owned a house and a small property near a village in La Mancha. With him lived his niece, a housekeeper, and a man who looked after Quixada's farm and his one old white horse, which, though its master imagined it to be an animal of great strength and beauty, was... more...