Juvenile Nonfiction Books

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Books are as essentially a part of the home where boys and girls are growing into manhood and womanhood as any other part of the furnishings. Parents have no more right to starve a child’s mind than they have his body. If a child is to take his place among the men and women of his time he needs to know the past out of which the present grew, and he needs to know what is going on... more...

CHAPTER I—ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea.  They are England and Scotland, and Ireland.  England and Scotland form the greater part of these Islands.  Ireland is the next in size.  The little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots,... more...

1. There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, "It is just as I feared!—Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!" There was a Young Lady of Ryde,Whose shoe-strings were seldom untied;She purchased some clogs,And some small spotty dogs,And frequently walked about Ryde. 3. There was an Old Man with a nose,Who said, "If you choose to suppose,That my... more...

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Hermia and Lysander were lovers; but Hermia's father wished her to marry another man, named Demetrius. Now, in Athens, where they lived, there was a wicked law, by which any girl who refused to marry according to her father's wishes, might be put to death. Hermia's father was so angry with her for refusing to do as he wished, that he actually brought her... more...

CONVERSATION I. The rain came down in torrents, and beat violently against the parlour windows, whilst a keen autumnal blast made the children shiver, even by the side of a good fire. Their little hearts glowed with gratitude, when they reflected on their happy lot, sheltered from the bitter wind and driving sleet; and contrasted it with that of many miserable little beings, who were, no doubt,... more...

MY DEAR GRANDCHILDREN: We are reminded daily of the uncertainty of human life: for the young and the old, the gay and the grave, the good and the wicked, are subject to death. Young people do not realize this, but it is nevertheless true, and before you are old enough, my children, to understand and lay to heart all that your mother would tell you of her dearly beloved father, she may be asleep with... more...

CHAPTER I A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggarman by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my... more...

Christopher Columbus The Boy of Genoa: 1446(?)-1506 A privateer was leaving Genoa on a certain June morning in 1461, and crowds of people had gathered on the quays to see the ship sail. Dark-hued men from the distant shores of Africa, clad in brilliant red and yellow and blue blouses or tunics and hose, with dozens of glittering gilded chains about their necks, and rings in their ears, jostled... more...

THE EAGLE. The Eagle is often called the King of Birds, and therefore it is of him that we ought to speak first. Very likely you have often seen eagles in the Zoological Gardens, and, if so, you know what noble looking birds they are. But they seem very sad in their prison-houses, to which no kindness can ever attach them. They are formed to soar boldly to the top of some lonely mountain height, and... more...

CHIRP THE FIRST. The winter of 1878 was certainly an unusually dreary one, and so thought a remarkably fine young Blackbird, as he perched one morning on the bare bough of a spreading lime-tree, whose last brown leaf had fallen to the ground some weeks before. With the exception of the Scotch firs and other fortunate evergreens, there was nothing to be seen on all sides but leafless branches standing... more...