Abstract

Children and Gentle Beasts

The article presents information on several books. "A Century of Children's Books," by Florence V. Barry, "The Story of Mrs. Tubbs. Dr. Dolittle's Post Office," by Hugh Lofting, "The Kitchen Porch," by George Philip Krapp and "Knee-High to a Grasshopper," by Anne and Dillwyn Parrish. Barry's account of children's books begins at a time when Cinderella and Robin Hood and Goody Two-Shoes were names as yet unspoken. And it would probably astonish children who regard those names as somehow associated with the foundations of the world to hear how recent that time was. In the middle of the seventeenth century children's books were still moral, instructive, and grave; for example, the "Token for Children," containing "an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful deaths of several young children.