Read Me a Story by MRS. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 7, 1916

“Read Me a Story”

By MRS. I. H. E.

THE story told leads naturally to the story read. Few things entering into the lives of the children at home have a stronger molding influence on their characters than the stories that are told to them, read to them, and that later they learn to read for themselves. A great deal is said about the demoralizing influence of bad reading, but it is well to remember that the constructive influence of good reading is just as strong. It is the mother’s part to guide her children into the realms of truth and beauty and knowledge that will lead them in later years to reject the evil, and choose only the noble and uplifting.

When we consider the influence that even one book may have on the life of a child, we hesitate to choose, among the great number of books published, those that we dare recommend. And if you have ever sat down with dozens of books before you, to choose those suitable for your own children to read, you will understand something of the magnitude of the task undertaken by those who plan the Missionary Volunteer Reading Course year by year. Last year, 1,708 Reading Course certificates were issued; and that means that this number of young people completed the reading of the books in either the Senior or the Junior Reading Course.

The Reading Course idea is not confined to our own denomination. Other churches are working out the same plan, under different names, providing courses for adults and for the youth and children, as well as special courses in Bible, sacred literature, and other subjects. The idea in all this educational movement is preparation for service. Fortunate indeed the child whose parents, looking toward the time when the child will take his place in the world as a living, molding force, sets before him such reading as will lead him to follow the motto of a certain royal house, “I serve.”

Junior Reading Course No. 9

Have you, mothers of story-loving children, looked over the books selected for Junior Reading Course No. 9? This course contains three books—“Places Young Americans Want to Know,” “Children’s Missionary Story-Sermons,” and “The First Book of Birds.”

The first of these, by Everett T. Tomlinson, has 282 pages, is nicely bound in green cloth, and is well illustrated. The following list of titles gives an idea of the “little journeys” on which the children may go, with mother as conductor and guide, if they have this book:—

The Greatest Rock in America; The Capital of the Nation; Mount Vernon; The Oldest Town in the United States; The First English Settlement; Independence Hall; Concord and Lexington; Bunker Hill; Trenton and Princeton; The Oldest College in America; West Point and Annapolis; Yellowstone Park; The Yosemite Valley; The Grand Canon; Pike’s Peak; “Remember the Alamo!” The Crescent City; The Father of Waters; The Brooklyn Bridge; San Francisco and the Golden Gate; Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty; Through the Great Lakes; Niagara Falls; The Thousand Islands; Lake George; “Where Rolls the Oregon;” The Skyscrapers.

“Children’s Missionary Story-Sermons” is full of true stories just long enough for bedtime reading. Here is the beginning of one:—

“A Story About Stockings”

“Little girls of every land are very much the same. Of course they have not the same color of skin nor the same dresses nor the same shoes, hats, nor books; but all over the wide, wide world all little girls have much the same hearts, for they are all children of one heavenly Father. When Fidelia Fiske first went to Persia, she soon found the little Persian girls as lovable as the little American girls she had left behind in her New England home. Of course everybody loved Fidelia Fiske. She had not only a beautiful name but a beautiful face, and hers was a beautiful life. When she died, a little Persian girl wrote to America, ‘Is there another Miss Fiske in your country?’”

All normal children love birds, and the mother who reads “The First Book of Birds,” by Olive Thorne Miller, to her children, will find their interest aroused in our little feathered friends in a new and personal way. They will realize that birds are not only beautiful to see, and sweet to hear, and fun to watch, but they are great workers and helpers to men, saving much more grain and fruit than they ever eat.

These three books may be bought separately, at $1, 90 cents, and 60 cents respectively; or the three will be sent, postpaid, for $2.15 if ordered at the same time. They make a fine start for any child’s library; but far better than having these books in a library is having the information they contain in the heads and hearts of the children.

Senior Course No. 10

For the older young people of the family, Senior Course No. 10 has four splendid books,—“The Advance Guard of Missions,” “Getting Acquainted with the Trees,” “Steps to Christ,” and “History of the Waldenses.” Every one of these books is a gem of its kind. “The Advance Guard of Missions” sketches the lives and experiences of a noble army of pioneer missionaries, and will kindle in the heart of every reader a deeper love for missions. “Getting Acquainted with the Trees” helps us to add to our love of trees some of the rudiments of knowledge about them. “Steps to Christ,” already in many homes, is one of those helps to Christian living that should be read and read again. And “History of the Waldenses” tells of the dreadful persecutions endured by these steadfast people through a long series of centuries,—persecutions which form “one of the most remarkable pages of the church’s history.” Their steadfast adherence to principle may well prove an example to the Adventist youth of this time. The four books will be sent, postpaid, for $2.15 if ordered at the same time.

The fathers and mothers, as well as the older young people, will find these books good reading. Why not join the Spare Minute Circle as a family this fall, and get the books of both courses for winter evening reading with the children?

“Information is the key to intelligent interest;” and information in missionary heroism, in loyalty to principle, and in a study of nature, will lead the minds of your children along the paths you would choose for them to follow in later years.

MRS. I. H. E.