Reading Roundup

I mentioned my most recent purchase in the previous post, Roundup, but I decided it needed its own moment in the sun! It is truly lovely and I am determined to find the following books in addition to this version which is Book One. Reading Roundup is a child's reading guide that is filled with stories and poems and pictures about people, animals and adventures. The inside cover is inscribed in blue ink, 'Beach School 1959.' There is even a ballerina on the back cover!

This book seems to be an introduction to the greatness of literature for young readers. The table of contents is divided into the following subheads: Ourselves and Others, Animal Parade, Looking Backward, Let's Play the Game, Unforgettable People, Just for Fun, In Quest of Adventure, Modern Marvels, and The American Way. Some of the notable contributing authors include Robert Frost, Charles Lamb, Emily Dickinson, Laura Ingalls Wilder (my personal favorite), Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman. One excerpt that I am very excited to read is entitled The Laurence Boy and is listed as a radio play by Walter Hackett and adapted from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

On the division page of Ourselves and Others is this poem by Elizabeth Madox Roberts from "The People."

The ants are walking under the ground, 

And the pigeons are flying over the steeple, 

And in between are the people. 

The division page of Animal Parade has this poem by George Eliot...

Animals are such agreeable friends- 

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. 

The division page for Looking Backward features a perfect poem by Soren Kierkegaard for the title of the section. 

Life can only be understood backwards; 

but it must be lived forwards.

The division page of Let's Play the Game features a two-page illustration in blues and whites of sailboats in the sea and numerous people standing on a dock and the following line from John Masefield from "Biography."

The days that make us happy make us wise. 

I was quite delighted to read the quote on the division page of Unforgettable People because it was written by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet in A Book of Americans, which I also own.

We couldn't put in all the great

Or even all the small,

And many names with sterling claims

We haven't used at all. 

The quote featured on the division page of Just for Fun is by the literary great, William Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew.

And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,

Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. 

The division page of In Quest of Adventure presents the poem by John Vanderbilt in "Highways and Byways." And I LOVE it!

Oh, you may take a highway,

A wide, straight highway,

A fine cement highway, 

For yourself.

But give me a byway, 

A rutted, narrow byway, 

A turning, wooded byway, 

For myself.

I love the poem by Nancy Byrd Turner in "Sic Transit" on the division page of Modern Marvels as well!

My grandson's grandson somewhere in the rack 

Of time will wake one night, and hear below

The levels where the winking air-lines glow

A rumble like a beetle on its back,

And smile, and bless the last old motorcar

Rattling to join the horse and dinosaur. 

Again I was elated to open to the division page of The American Way and who do I see? George, Thomas, Teddy, and Abe! The poem on this page was written by Abraham Lincoln.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.

This expresses my idea of democracy. 

Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference,

is no democracy. 

502 pages of literary and future library loveliness. 

And it only cost me $5.30