The Child in the Library : Part 4

The American Child
by Elizabeth McCracken

(Page 9 of 12)

The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal, things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." With much curiosity I turned its pages, - pages illustrated with pictures of the make-at-home things of the title, - glancing at directions for constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone.

"Well, I wish he would care to have any book!" she replied. "If you want to try this one - " She left the sentence unfinished, unless a sigh may be regarded as a conclusion.

I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy.

Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. "What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a book for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants to make something not mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see if I could find a book that told how!"

"So he likes books better now?" I commented.

"Well - I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he didn't like 'booky' books any better, but he liked this kind, and always would have, if he'd known about them!"

Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had "Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month.

It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week, much less in an afternoon.

The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading! Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to choose only the real books for the boys; and yet they want to make things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach them how except through books. My husband has no time for it, and there is no one else to show them."

The next summer I went to spend a few days with my friend in the country. The morning after my arrival her boys proposed to take me "over the place." At the lower edge of the garden, to which we presently came, there was a little brook. Across it was a bridge. It was plainly to be seen that this bridge was the work of the boys. "How very nice it is!" I remarked.

"We made it," the older of the boys instantly replied.

"Who showed you how?" I queried, wondering, as I spoke, if my friend had, after all, changed her mind with respect to the selection of books for her children, and chosen one "How to Make" volume.

"It told how in a book," the younger boy said; "a Latin book father studied out of when he was a boy. There was a picture of the bridge; and on the pages in the back of the book the way to make it was all written out in English - father had done it when he was in school. It was a long time before we could quite see how to do it; but mother helped, and the picture showed how, and father thought we could do it if we kept at it. And it is really a good bridge - you can walk across on it."

When the boys and I returned to the house my friend greeted me with a merry smile. As soon as we were alone she exclaimed, "I have so wanted to write to you about our bridge, patterned on Caesar's! But the boys are so proud of it, they like to 'surprise' people with it - not because it is like a bridge Caesar made, but because it is a bridge they have made themselves!"