reading
_Rab and His Friends_ differ from what he absorbs.

In the books of this series the love story has little place, and into it
sex problems do not enter. Its readers have not reached an age when such
things are of serious moment, and there is enough good literature for
them without dragging in or even admitting stories of passion and those
that make their strongest appeal to the attraction of one sex for
another. However, there is an abundance of sentiment, and the home
feelings are recognized again and again; the love of parents for each
other and for their offspring, the love of brother and sister,
friendship, the pure affection of young people, love of home, of God, of
country, all are subjects of the finest selections the language
contains. Such are to be found in abundance.

In the lists more latitude has been allowed, and while nothing has been
included that may excite anything but the purest emotions, yet room has
been made for many of the great novels that are real studies of the
lives and characters of adults. These books, really written for older
people, will have their message for the young, a message that will be
amplified and perhaps changed entirely, when, after many years, the book
is read again with no lessened interest. _Les Miserables_ was read once
by a young boy whose attention was caught and held so strongly by the
exciting story that he held himself through all the long, prosy
meanderings with which Hugo has delayed the march of his plot. Some
years later the same boy, grown to a college student, read _Les
Miserables_ again with even greater interest. He remembered the story
quite well, but the prosy meanderings had to his broadened intelligence
become wonderful pictures of life, and even the book-long description of
the Battle of Waterloo was fascinating, though its only function in the
story was to say that one man saved another man's life. The boy, now a
man in middle life, read Hugo's masterpiece a third time. Story and
description were now secondary in interest, but the author's deep
insight into human nature, his brilliant style and shrewd, kindly
philosophy held the old reader more closely than had anything before. So
will it be with many of the books in the list. If we are to make
friends, let us meet them as early as we can, see them as often as we
can, and cling to them as long as we can.

In recommending books to children, parents will do well to remember that
books in which you