II. FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.

grown folks come from your generous sharing of your delights, your eager expectations, your own mysterious preparations, and your whole-souled enjoyment of the great day itself. So we have made this BOOK NEWS full of pictures, some of them from your favorite books, some from new books it will not take you long to begin to love, and some from books you will want when you, too, are grown-up.

CHRISTMAS TIME.

"Alack! Alack! the days are black,

The trees are wet with rime;

If one's out for a day, one is ill for a week, I hate this Christmas time,

With its aches and ills, its pills and bills, To me it brings no cheer;

'Tis a very good thing, as some folks sing, It comes but once a year."

"Heap high the logs, fling wide your doors, And let all folks draw near;

And ring a chime for this blessed time
That comes but once a year:
When envy flies from jealous eyes,
When all heart-burnings cease,

And hand clasps hand thro' all the land,
In fellowship and peace."

Thus Content and Discontent

Sing the whole year thro';

Tell me true, then,

Which are you, then,

Tell me true, friend, which are you? From Through the Meadows, by Fred. E. Weatherly.

BRIC-A-BRAC.

BRIC-A-BRAC STORIES. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated by Walter Crane. I 2mo. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.50.

Mrs. Burton Harrison deserves a long and overflowing Christmas stocking crammed full of thanks-and cheques-for her charming book of stories, which is a true benefaction to lingerers by late firesides or people who sit up long o' nights. The idea which pervades her book is ingenious. The central personage is little Regi, who, immured in a grand Fifth Avenue mansion, listens to the wonderful stories of the bric-a-brac ornaments in Mr. Stanley's parlors as they recount their strange adventures and conjure up thrilling memories of the lands and scenes and hands through which they have passed. Thus the Arabian Pipe tells a story of the East, the French Fan relates the history of King Charming, the Swiss Clock coos and cuckoos wonderfully from its balcony, and quill-pens, Scotch hunting-horns, Moorish dishes and silver porringers grow glib with their remarkable fates and fortunes. As each object is representative of a certain country, so each story, in general, busies itself about the land of its birth; and thus, in a happy and instructive way, with a touch as deft as thistle-down, Mrs. Harrison weaves her spangled woof and presents us and the children with a many-colored scarf gay with the hues of a dozen countries. Nor does she ever forget for a moment the true child's point of view. While she gathers her stories from far and wide-from Asbjörnsen and Boccaccio, from Daudet and Caballero, from Leyden and Weiland, compounding like a keen cuisinière spices from Spain, from France, from Norway, America, Wales, Italy, England, and Germany— she re-writes and re-inspires them, localizes and colors them to suit her own fancy, and gives them to us filled with the piquant charm of her own individuality. We only wish our bric-à-brac talked so entertainingly! Critic.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, CHILDREN! BOOK NEWS wishes especially to be on the friendliest terms with the children, and well knows that wherever there is any Christmas at all, it is always the children's day. From the wee toddlers to the big boys and girls, home for the Holidays, all the merriment of Merry Christmas belongs to you, dear children, little and big, and all the good times of the

PEPPER AND SALT. PEPPER AND SALT; OR, SEASONING FOR YOUNG FOLK. Prepared by Howard Pyle. Illustrated. 4to. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.50.

It is a question whether children or their elders will be the more pleased with this delightful book. Here are eight quaint and pretty fairy stories, each followed

by rhymes and jingles in dress of humor and fancy, and enough of satire in the moral thrusts to justify the title of the whole. Two or three glimpses of the author's personality add zest to this cheering compound. In the preface he explains himself and his intentions in such a taking way as quite to whet our appetites for the first merry tale, and his parting shot at the critics will hardly fail to overcome all but the

savagely disposed. The illustrations are exceptionally

good and appropriate, and the make-up of the volume excellent even to luxuriousness.

BABYLAND, OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN, PANSY, AND WIDE AWAKE. BABYLAND FOR 1885. 4to. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, 65 cents; boards, 40 cents.

OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN FOR 1885. 4to. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.00; boards, 75 cents. PANSY FOR 1885. Edited by Mrs. G. R. Alden (Pansy). 4to. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.00; boards, 75 cents..

WIDE AWAKE. Vol. T. 4to. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.25; boards, $1.00. To anxious mammas and aunties, with the responsibility of finding good reading for the children weighing upon them, what could be found more helpful than a series of four delightful monthlies young enough for the two-year-olds and working on by gentle grades to young heads in their teens? It is not too much to say that Babyland is ideal. It is remarkably free from the air of being manufactured for the occasion, for its little stories and jingles go so straight to the babies' hearts that it is evident that real babies must have had something to do with making them. Our Little Men and Women goes on with pretty pictures and childish

fancies, and hesitates not to begin the study of literature by easy biographical sketches of well-known authors who have written especially for children. Science and History enter Pansy's pages, and after so good a foundation has been made, Wide Awake has only to follow out the lines so well laid. There are plenty of pretty pictures, of course, or they would not be children's magazines. These well and gayly bound volumes will be welcomed even by children who have had the separate numbers month by month; or a story is worth little that cannot be enjoyed over and over again, while the convenience of having the numbers in compact form is obvious.

HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE FOR 1885. 8vo. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $2.65.

This illustrated weekly periodical is gotten up with great taste and care, and apparently without any regard to cost. Each number consists of sixteen pages in quarto, and is delivered on Saturdays. Harper's Young People keeps the golden mean between mere excitement and dullness; it is lively, good-natured, instructive and entertaining, and young people from five to ten years' old cannot be favored with a better magazine. Its principal editor is Mr. A. B. Stanley; but his name is never mentioned in the magazine.

Beacon.

ROSE BUDS.

ROSE BUDS. By Virginia Gerson. 8vo. Illustrated. Sold by John Wanamaker, boards, $1.25. This book for little children is in the style that Kate Greenaway has made so popular, but varies from the original type as each newcomer does. The rhymes are jingling and have more than the usual allowance of sense; some pictures are colored, some are black and white. It is very pretty and offers a variety of amusement for the little ones. Boston Advertiser.

in the wood, where he had found a number of delightful playfellows, who amused him and told him stories. One was a huge black bear, another a raccoon, and another a gray squirrel; there was also a woodpigeon, and a gray parrot with a red tail, and a fat wood-chuck, that occasionally joined the circle. One day, hearing his poor old grandmother heave a very heavy sigh, he inquired what was the matter, and she acknowledged she was very lonely. A happy thought strikes Toto, and the next afternoon all his miscella

PRINCES, AUTHORS, AND STATESMEN. SOME NOTED PRINCES, AUTHORS, AND STATESMEN OF OUR TIME. By Canon Farrar, James T. Fields, Archibald Forbes, E. P. Whipple, James Parton, Louise Chandler Moulton and others. Edited by James Parton. 8vo. Illustrated. Sold by John Wanamaker, $2.00. Those sketches of eminent men of the day which are so familiar to the readers of the Youth's Companion have a double value and attractiveness in the handsome volume in which they now appear. The biographies are, for the most part, from the pens of wellknown writers, and of writers, moreover, exceptionally fitted in each case to do full justice to the subject of the sketch. Such a book as this ought to command the heartiest interest of every young reader. No such collection of biographies that we have seen gives so much well-presented and readable information about the men and women of whom every American boy and girl of intelligence should be expected to know something.

Boston Advertiser.

THE JOYOUS STORY OF TOTO.

THE JOYOUS STORY OF TOTO. By Laura E. Richards. With illustrations by E. H. Garrett. I 2mo. Sold by John Wanamaker, cloth, $1.10.

Toto was a little boy who lived with his blind grandmother in a little red cottage, just by the edge of a thick wood. Most of Master Toto's time was passed

neous friends are brought to the cottage, where their funny talk and remarkable narratives gave the grandmother as much pleasure as Toto. Through the whole book there is a vein of fun in the exaggerated style of Alice in Wonderland, that is very amusing. Mrs. Richards is a daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Publishers' Weekly.