512,823
№533
念
​UNNY, OF MICHI
FAVORITE STORIES
OF THE
LIBRARY READING
CLUBS
Z
5916
15
N

NEW YORK
PUBLIC
IC LIBRARY
PASTOR LENDE
ANO TILOEN
FOUNDATIONS
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
1915
ary
4-15
Reclassed 11-26-29 ELM
Across the seas of Wonderland to Mogadore
we plodded,
Forty singing seamen in an old black barque,
And we landed in the twilight where a Poly-
phemus nodded.
With his battered moon-eye winking red
and yellow through the dark!
For his eye was growing mellow,
Rich and ripe and red and yellow,
As was time, since old Ulysses made him
bellow in the dark!
Chorus
Since Ulysses bunged his eye up with a pine-
torch in the dark!
-Alfred Noyes.
(From "Forty Singing Seamen."
This selection,
and others in the following pages, reproduced by per-
mission of Frederick A. Stokes & Co.)
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287577
THE
HE following list has been compiled
from titles selected from the "special
collections" of The New York Public
Library reading clubs, and pronounced by
club members as favorites. These collec-
tions are kept together for a period of from
four to six weeks, and are suggestive for
home reading during the time the topic is
under club consideration.
The topics are as varied as the clubs' in-
terests, and are chosen in most cases by
the members. Here are a few: "Railroad
stories;" "Mystery and Humorous stories;"
"Heroes;" "Adventures on Land and Sea;"
"Western Stories;" and "History Stories."
The library reading clubs are an out-
growth of the library story hour. Member-
ship is unrestricted and includes boys and
girls from thirteen to eighteen years old.
The aim of the clubs as of the story hours
is to extend and deepen reading interests by
a vivid introduction to stories, histories,
biographies and poetry.
Since this list is intended primarily for the
use of club workers, the annotation has
taken the form of direct quotations from the
story or poem with some indication of its
use in a reading club. The list was compiled
by Anna C. Tyler.
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FAVORITE STORIES
"Then he says, "In yonder forest there's a
little silver river
And whosoever drinks of it, his youth
shall never die!
The centuries go by, but Prester John
endures for ever
With his music in the mountains and his
magic on the sky!
While your hearts are growing colder,
While your world is growing older,
There's a magic in the distance, where the
sea-line meets the sky."
Chorus
"It shall call to singing seamen till the fount
o' song is dry!"
(From: "Forty Singing Seamen.")
Andrews, M. R. S. The Perfect Tribute. “
"There's something about you Mr. Lincoln," the
young Georgian answered gravely..."which makes me
wish to call you, if I may, a friend."
Introduced with the special collections "historical
romances;" afterwards chosen by a member to tell
at a school Memorial Day celebration.
Buckley, E. F. Children of the Dawn.
STORY: The winning of Atalanta.
A particularly beautiful version of this myth. The
key note is struck, when Meilanion tells his bride of
the advice given him by Aphrodite. "Fear not, Meil-
anion, I have heard the cry of thy heart. Here are
three apples from mine own apple-tree. If she whom
thou lovest loves thee in return, she cannot resist
the spell of their golden brightness. When thou run-
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nest against her, cast them one by one into the middle
of the course. If she love thee she will turn aside
to pick them up. For her they will be as heavy as the
gold they seem made of. For thee they will be as
light as the fruit whose form they wear.
Collins, Wilkie. After Dark and other -
stories.
STORY: A Terribly Strange Bed.
This story has called forth interesting discussions
and comparisons with Poe's "The Pit and the Pendu-
lum" and Stevenson's "The Black Arrow."
Couch, A. T. Quiller. Wandering Heath.
STORY: My Grandfather, Hendry Watty.
This quaintly humorous tale, which Couch himself
calls "A Droll," has proved a great favorite with
older boys; it has been told and read, and always
received with keen interest. It is in reality a dream
and runs as follows: To fulfill a bet, Hendry Watty
rode out to the "Shivering Grounds, all in the dead
waste and middle of night." This was where a wreck
had been, and it was reported the spot was haunted.
The story relates the amusing and startling incidents
of the night and what came of it.
Davis, R. H. In the Fog.‘
This has been told and discussed by club members
and voted by many the best mystery-detective story
yet written.
The Man Who Could not Lose.
This collection includes two stories especially en-
joyed, "The Consul," and "The Lost House," a good
mystery story. "The Consul" can be used as a Lincoln
story and is published separately. "A Charmed Life"
is another favorite by the same author, from his
"Once Upon a Time.”
Doyle, A. C. The Green Flag, and other
stories of war and sport.
STORY: The Green Flag.
"Private Conolly had planted his rifle-stock down-
wards in a mimosa bush. From the fixed bayonet
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there fluttered a little green flag with the crownless
harp... 'What for the flag?' yelled the private."
How Conolly with his small green flag, made the
"C_Company," in a fierce attack by the Arabs, turn
defeat into victory. A fine story of the Irishman's
love of his country and his flag.
Round the Fire Stories:
STORY: The Brazilian cat.
The story of an Englishman who on his return
from South America purchased an estate and stocked
it with rare tropical birds and beasts. His favorite
animal was a huge black Brazilian puma which he
kept in a barred room in the house. The story tells
how he invited his cousin to pay him a visit; inveigled
him into the cage, shut and barred the door. The
struggle with the "cat" is vividly described; the man
escapes with his life; the owner is killed. This story
is in Doyle's best style and the hearer's interest in it is
keen, not only in the story, but in comparing it with
Poe's, The Black Cat.
Fitchett, W. H. The Tale of the Great
Mutiny.
Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as
when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.
But mine eyes are unto Thee, O God the Lord.
Psalm CXLI
Many times has the story of the Sepoy rebellion
been told, and "repeated by special request. Fitchett
tells his story vividly; the book also contains excellent
portraits and maps.
Gaskell, Mrs. E. C. S.
Cranford.
"Miss Matty" and her friends pay visits, drink tea
and indulge in mild gossip, with nothing more excit-
ing than Signor Brunoni's conjuring exhibition to
break the monotony of life in Cranford until "Miss
Matty" loses her money and "Mr. Peter," whom
everyone had thought dead, comes home from India
and sets things straight.
So great was the charm of this book for one group
of girls, that they named their club the "Cranford
Club."
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Gras, Felix. The Reds of the Midi.
"Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!"
"It was the 'Marseillaise' that they were singing
...On they came
came we presented arms and they
passed between our files, still singing...Oh, what a
sight it was! Five hundred men sun-burnt as locust-
beans, with black eyes blazing like live coals under
bushy eye brows all white with the white dust of
the road...And when from all those red mouths
burst forth the chorus 'Aux armes, citoyens!' it
fairly made a shiver run down one's spine. Two
drums marked step- The whole Battalion passed
onward and was swallowed up in the city gate.
The wonderful story of the march across France
to Paris of the "Marseilles Battalion". is told inimit-
ably. "The Terror," and "The White Terror" carry
on the story.
Harte, Bret. The Luck of Roaring Camp:
A club of East Side boys has appreciated this story
and commented on Bret Harte's use of English. One
boy memorized the part relating to the destruction of
Roaring Camp by flood, as his contribution to the
club programme.
Sally Dows?
STORY: Their Uncle from California.
·
A mystery; a villain; "a rambling old homestead.
so full of old nooks and corners and unaccountable
spaces," hidden treasure; two charming girls, and
inimitable "Uncle Sylvester" hold the interest from
start to finish.
Henry, O. The Four Million."
STORY: After Twenty Years.
Twenty years before this story opens two young
men, great chums, parted, agreeing to meet at the
same place and time after exactly twenty years.
The story tells how they kept the appointment.
Introduced as part of an evening's talk on New York
City, illustrated by Radiopticon pictures.
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Hope, Anthony. The Prisoner of Zenda.
A sub-title describes this story as "The History of
Three Months in an English Gentleman's Life. A
most eventful three months wherein the hero's
striking resemblance to the reigning king of Ruritania
brings about such exciting happenings as a mock-
coronation, a real king thrown into a castle dungeon,
with the play-king trying to effect his escape, a beauti-
ful princess torn between love and devotion to her
country, and an exciting rescue at the end.
Hough, Emerson. The Story of the Outlaw.
STORIES: The Vigilantes of California.
Henry Plummer.
Wild Bill Hickok.
The Fight of Buckshot Roberts.
The difference between the use of this book with
older boys, and one like Al. Jenning's Beating Back,
is that of introducing them to the historian's rather than
the outlaw's view of a wild and picturesque period.
Jennings, in spite of all the sufferings he has caused
and endured, cannot refrain from glorying in his
cleverness to accomplish so much wrong-doing, even
while "beating-back" to a decent life. The stories
indicated have been used in connection with the period
of "The Winning of the West" in American history.
Hughes, Thomas.
Days.
Tom Brown's School<
To tell "Tom Brown's school days" successfully, one
needs to begin at Chapter V, giving a short resumé of
the preceding chapters. It is at this point that Tom
enters Rugby and the real action of the story begins.
Jacobs, W. W. The Lady of the Barge.
STORY: The Monkey's Paw.
"Sergeant Major Morris," while living in India,
becomes the possessor of a monkey's paw, upon which
a spell had been cast, so that the owner might have
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three wishes granted. He was about to throw the paw
into the fire, when his friend asked to be allowed to
keep it, and the story which follows tells of the three
wishes and what came of granting them. A favorite
story in the reading clubs at Hallow'een meetings.
"Three at Table," in the same collection, is also a very
good story.
Kipling, Rudyard. The Brushwood Boy."
"Over the edge of the purple down,
Where the single lamplight gleams,
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town,
That is hard by the Sea of Dreams
One of the popular stories in the girls' reading clubs.
The Day's Work."
STORY:
.007.
"With a michnai-ghignai-shtingal!
Yah!
Yah! Yah!
Ein-zwei-drei-Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!
She climb upon der shteeple,
Und she frighten all der people.
Singin' michnai-ghignai-shtingal!
Yah!"
Yah! Yah!
"That is .007 covering his one hundred and fifty-six
miles in two hundred and twenty-one minutes.'
A new locomotive tells the story of his first experi-
ence at a wreck, how he was tested, and found worthy
to be “a full and accepted Brother of the Amalgamated
Brotherhood of Locomotives." This has been voted one
of the best of the "railroad stories."
Lang, W. H. Australia.
STORY: A Little White Hero.
How an English lad of eleven, gave his life in
defending his father's cattle station against an attack
by the Australian "black-fellows."
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Laut, A. C. Pathfinders of the West.
"Yes, man must sink or fight, be strong or die!
That is thy law, O great, free, strenuous West!"
STORIES: Radisson's first voyage.
Radisson's third voyage.
The search for the Western sea.
Samuel Hearne.
First across the Rockies.
The thrilling adventures of Pierre Esprit Radisson,
the first white man to explore the West, Northwest
and the North; M. de la Vérendrye's explorations,
discovery of the Rockies, his privations and death;
Samuel Hearne and how his search for the Northwest
Passage led him to the Arctic Circle and Athabasca
region; how Mackenzie crossed the Northwest Rockies
and Lewis and Clark were the first to cross from
Missouri to Columbia. These have been read, told and
enjoyed as the best kind of Indian stories.
Laut, A. C.
STORIES:
The Story of the Trapper.
The French trapper.
The Indian trapper.
Koot and the Bob-cat.
"To live hard and die hard, king in the wilderness
and pauper in the town, lavish to-day and penniless to-
morrow such was the life of the most picturesque
figure in America's history."
London, Jack. The Call of the Wild."
"In the summer there is one visitor, however, to that
valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a
great, gloriously-coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all
other wolves...here he muses for a time, howling once,
long and mournfully, ere he departs."
Mitchell, J. A. Amos Judd.
A revolution in an Indian province; rescue of the
young rajah and his escape to America where he lives
Amos Judd;" his mysterious prophetic faculty;
his love romance and its tragic ending. This story is
a great favorite with the girls.
as
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Noyes, Alfred. Collected Poems."
POEM: The Flower of Old Japan.
*
"The road to Old Japan! you cry,
And is it far or near?
Some never find it till they die;
Some find it everywhere;
The road where restful Time forgets
His weary thoughts and wild regrets
And calls the golden year
Back in a fairy dream to smile
On young and old a little while.
Do you remember all the tales
That Tusitala told,
When first we plunged thro' purple vales
In quest of buried gold?
Do you remember how he said
That if we fell and hurt our head
Our hearts must still be bold,
And we must never mind the pain
But rise up and go on again?"
Another of the favorites from the collection of
"story poems.
Ollivant, Alfred. The Gentleman.
'Do'ee know who Nelson was?
That pore, little, shrivelled form
With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve
And a soul like a North Sea storm?'
"A face flashed over the cliff, eagle-beaked and
beautiful... Breathing through his nostrils, Kit eyed
him.
"Then you're the Gentleman.' The young man
bowed with an action that was altogether French..
'What's that red riband in your button-hole?' asked
the boy in a kind of awe. "That! that's the Legion of
Honour. Put your finger on it. That little bit of
riband once lay upon the heart of Napoleon.' The boy
began to tremble. That tiny square of red from which
he could not take his eyes had once throbbed to the
heart-beats of the arch-enemy!"
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Page, T. N. In Ole Virginia.
STORY: Marse Chan.
A delightful story to read aloud. All the charm and
romance of the South "befo' de war" is here.
Parkman, Francis. La Salle; and the Dis-
covery of the Great West.
"In him an unconquerable mind held at its service.
a frame of iron, and tasked it to its utmost endurance.
The pioneer of Western pioneers was no rude son
of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and
letters.
"
Parkman's story of La Salle was introduced through
stories about Canada. It was read aloud, as well as
several accounts of Indian adventures, and Parkman
and La Salle became the heroes of the evening.
Pittenger, William. The Great Locomotive
Chase.
The story of the Andrews' railroad raid into Georgia
in 1862; pursuit by the Southerners and their recap-
ture of the locomotive, is told most vividly by Pitten-
ger, who was one of the raiders. The book is also
interesting for the number of old war pictures it con-
tains.
Poe, E. A. Tales.
STORY: The Purloined Letter.
The first of the modern type of "detective_story,"
and probably the best. Doyle has paid his tribute of
indebtedness to the master, openly, by closely following
his lead; compare this, and "A Scandal in Bohemia.
The development of the plot of a good mystery story,
is very different from the morbid suggestiveness of a
Hornung; hence the club use of Poe, Stevenson, Doyle,
Davis and Collins.
Porter, Jane. The Scottish Chiefs.
"There broke the noblest heart that ever beat in the
breast of man!"
This romantic story of William Wallace, and Grace
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Aguilar's, "The Days of Bruce," continue to charm the
lover of historical romance.
Scott, Sir Walter. Rob Roy.
The first question the boys asked when they were
told that "Rob Roy" was the story for the evening was,
"Who was Rob Roy?" This question was the opening
wedge to a most delightful discussion of outlaws, free-
booters, border feuds, and the "Scott country. The
boys became so interested in the story that they were
loath to leave at 9 o'clock, when the story was in full
swing.
""
Seton, E. Thompson. The Trail of the Sand-
hill Stag.
"Oh, beautiful creature! One of our wise men has
said, the body is the soul made visible; is your spirit
then so beautiful as beautiful as wise?"
The library club members, who are also Camp Fire
Girls and Boy Scouts, are keenly interested in this
story.
Smith, F. Hopkinson. Colonel Carter of
Cartersville.
"What a frank, generous, tender-hearted fellow he
is: happy as a boy; hospitable to the verge of beggary;
enthusiastic as he is visionary; simple as he is genuine.
Stevenson, R. L. Island Nights' Entertain- `
ments.
STORY: The Bottle Imp.
"And he opened a lockfast place, and took out a
round-bellied bottle with a long neck; the glass of it
was white like milk, with changing rainbow colors in
the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved,
like a shadow and a fire."
New Arabian Nights.
STORY: The Sire de Maletroit's Door.
"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little
pride."
Denis de Beaulieu in his attempt to escape from
"the night watch," slips through a door which opens
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silently at his touch, and he is trapped; he meets a
sinister little old gentleman, the Sire de Maletroit,
who gives him the choice of marrying his niece Blanche
within two hours, or being hanged from the window of
the palace.
A favorite story with both boys and girls; the former
eagerly following the adventure, the latter enjoying
the romance.
Stockton, F. R. The Casting Away of Mrs.
Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine.
The never-to-be-forgotten story of two middle-aged
country women, who were wrecked in mid-ocean and
escaped in a leaky boat to a desert island.
Surridge, Victor. India.
STORY: The Wonderful Exploits of Sivaji.
"Tell me," he commanded sternly, "how old is this
capturer of forts?" "Your Majesty, he is but nineteen
years.
"
This is the story of the Hindoo boy Sivaji and the
rise of the powerful Maráthás.
Tarkington, Booth. Monsieur Beaucaire. <
A favorite in the girls' clubs.
Taylor, Bayard. The Story of Kennett.<
There are many interesting characters in and about
Kennett well worth remembering; especially "Sandy
Flash," the highwayman; the hero and the mystery
surrounding him; and the spinster who "sets things
right."
Tennyson, Alfred. The Poetic and Dramatic <
Works.
STORY: Enoch Arden.
"There came so loud a calling of the sea
That all the houses in the haven rang.
He woke, he rose, he spead his ams abroad,
Crying with a loud voice, ‘A sail! a sail!
I am saved;' and so fell back and spoke no more."
This has been one of the most popular, of the
"story poems" collection.
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Wilkins, M. E. Silence, and other stories.<
STORY: Silence.
This is a story of the Deerfield massacre, and is a
prime favorite; another by the same author is "Giles
Corey, Yeoman," a tale of New England witchcraft.
White, S. E., and S. H. ADAMs. The Mystery.^
An old scientist discovers a substance more powerful
than radium. A piratical old sailor, an old-time sea
captain and a newspaper reporter add to the interest
of the tale.
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