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|THE BOOK SHELF y 



i&rd Stories by Edith M. Patch, 212 pp with illustrations 

 by Robert J. Sim. The Atlantic Monthly Press. 



This is another volume of the series Little Gateways to Science 

 and surely no hand has more magic in unlatching the little gate- 

 ways than does that of Edith Patch. These bird stories are as 

 interesting and delightful as the Hexapod Stories which have 

 become dear to so many children. Miss Patch understands the 

 child mind and therefore knows that the child is interested in 

 the story of one creature rather than in any general descriptions 

 of the habits of the species. Each one of these stories is a thril- 

 ling biography of a bird telling its home life, its nestling and bird- 

 ling days and its experience as a grownup. Moreover, the birds 

 described are not those usually selected for children. With the 

 exception of the chickadee the other stories deal with the lives 

 unfamilar to children, of birds which they see but know compara- 

 tively little about. Miss Patch has followed her own happy 

 plan for naming her stories: The Chickadee is Chick D. D.; 

 The Five Worlds of Larie give the complete history of the seagull ; 

 Peter Piper is the biography of a sand piper; Gavia of Immer 

 Lake tells of the loon; Eve and Petro are a pair of cliff swallows 

 that have exciting experiences; Uncle Sam is the story of a bald 

 eagle, our bird of freedom; Corbie is a fascinating tale of a tame 

 crow that was reared and was the playmate of a Brown-eyed 

 Boy and a Blue-eyed Girl; Ardea's Soldier is the snowy heron; 

 The Flying Clown is a story of the night hawk that has taken 

 up her abode on the roofs of city houses; The Lost Dove is the 

 story of the passenger pigeon; Little Solomon Otus is the history 

 of a screech owl. The book closes with the romance and wander- 

 ings of Bob, The Vagabond, our beloved bobolink. 



No fairy story ever written is more absorbingly interesting 

 to the child than any one of these stories which are true and teach 

 the child many things besides giving him information. Miss 



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