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1925

Editor's Note: Many of the books are out of print. The header information will be as complete as I can make it.

Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger (fifth-grade level). ASIN: 0385075138. Out of print	The Medalist Variety of folktales from South and Central America. Good is rewarded and evil is punished. The collection includes a strong, positive ecological consciousness that still plays well today. It's tough to read all at once because of the archaic narrative style, but story by story it's useful and could appeal to modern readers.
Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story by Annie Carroll Moore (G.P. Putnam & Sons, sixth-grade level). Out of print	Honor Book The former children's librarian at the New York Metropolitan Library takes readers on an insiders' tour of New York and the world of children's literature. The story, what little there is of it, takes place around Christmas. It involves a detailed tour of old New York, replete with historical references beyond my kin. The second layer of the book involves references to literary characters from virtually every passingly famous children's book written  in the last 300 years. Reading it is a bit like thumbing through a People Magazine century in review. Pictures would be nice but the words are a hindrance. This book is precious, and I mean that in the older, negative denotation of the word. It is a vast and superficial survey of a world few people can understand. Reading this book is a bit like listening to David Letterman when he fires off a series of insider New York jokes. Who cares?
The Dream Coach by Anne and Dillwyn Parrish (MacMillan and Company, sixth-grade level).. Out of print	Honor Book The dream coach, as in carriage, makes a few stops to spice up the night life of young folks common and great. The book begins with a fluffy lyric then segues into a series of short chapters on four children who experience vivid dreams. The dreams of the two royal progeny provide these spoiled brats with pointed lessons about behavior.  The dreams of the commoners allow them to see the richness, non-monetary of course, of their lives. At first I was going to dismiss this book as another confection from the long Victorian hangover, but I plodded on and came to appreciate the art that brother and sister infused into their slim book. On a practical level, the Parrish siblings understand how dreams beg, borrow and steal elements of our everyday life and twist them into foreign shapes. On a deeper level, all four stories show the chasm of class that divided (divides?) society into alternative worlds of experience. In the marvelous last chapter, devoted to the dream of a poor farming lad, the authors share a paean to nature. They infuse this section with a strong Christian ethos and imply, none to subtly, that the meek shall inherit the earth. Note: Anne and Dillwyn are the children of the famed artist Maxfield Parrish, and seem to share his predilection for dreamy vistas glazed with the romance of the precious.

Copyright David Ross 2003