Juvenile Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. AT WAR WITH THE WORLD."Who would think so small a thingCould make so great a pother?" A pretty, cheerful nursery—a nursery in which surely children could not but be happy—with pictures on the walls and toys in the glass-doored cupboard, and rocking-horse and doll-house, and everything a child's heart could wish for. Spring sunshine faint but clear, like the first pale... more...

MISS MINCHIN'SSELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she was not "Select," and in the second she was not a "Young Lady." When she was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss... more...

CHAPTER I. RUPERT'S LECTURES—THE OLD YELLOW LEATHER BOOK. We were very happy—I, Rupert, Henrietta, and Baby Cecil. The only thing we found fault with in our lives was that there were so few events in them. It was particularly provoking, because we were so well prepared for events—any events. Rupert prepared us. He had found a fat old book in the garret, bound in yellow leather, at the end of... more...

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was... more...

THE OLD HOUSE. In the street, up there, was an old, a very old house,—it was almost three hundred years old, for that might be known by reading the great beam on which the date of the year was carved: together with tulips and hop-binds there were whole verses spelled as in former times, and over every window was a distorted face cut out in the beam. The one story stood forward a great way over the... more...

CHAPTER I AN INDIGNATION MEETING "Well, well, by all that's good! If it isn't Tom Fairfield back again!How are you, old man?" "Oh, fine and dandy! My! but it's good to see the old place again, Morse," and the tall, good-looking lad whom the other had greeted so effusively held out his hand—a firm, brown hand that told of a summer spent in the open. "Any of our boys... more...

CHAPTER I. Low stirrings in the leaves, before the windWakes all the green strings of the forest lyre.LOWELL. The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on upland and lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. And where a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, into the sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood the farmer's house. It was a little brown house,... more...

CHAPTER I Myra's Dreadful Children Miss Hetty Maise, having spent the night in fitful spells of slumber, at last awakened by the beams of sunlight, sat up in bed with a start, quite unrefreshed and possessed of an uncomfortable feeling that something unpleasant was about to happen. A venturesome sunbeam, casting its light upon a picture on the heavy walnut dresser, seemed to recall the cause of... more...

That sunny afternoon in May, How stealthily we crept away, We three—(Good things are done in threes: That is, good things in threes are done When you make two and I make one.)— To hatch our small conspiracies! Between the blossomy apple-trees (You recollect?) we sped, and then Safe in the green heart of the wood We breathed again. The purple flood the bluebells made Washed round about us where we... more...

INTO THE UNKNOWN It was a white caravan that looked down from the crest of the mountains upon the green wilderness, called by the Indians, Kain-tuck-ee. The wagons, a score or so in number, were covered with arched canvas, bleached by the rains, and, as they stood there, side by side, they looked like a snowdrift against the emerald expanse of forest and foliage. The travelers saw the land of hope,... more...