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77fe Waterboys and Their Cousins. Charles Dickens Lewis, Professor in 

 Berea College, Normal School, J. B. Lippincott Co. 172 pp. illustrated. 



It is with special interest and pleasure that we have read this volume for 

 children; for these fascinating Waterboys are old friends of ours. Professor 

 Lewis published a few of their adventures in a pamphlet a few years since 

 and favored us with a copy which has been very much prized ever since and 

 very often used. The activities of water in all its multifarious forms are 

 dramatized in stories which have the quality of being very interesting. The 

 Waterboys are the water molecules, dancing while they work and always 

 happy whether they are climbing up a sunbeam or rolling down a hill. How 

 they change from dewdrops to raindrops and to snowflakes, how they work 

 in the ground, how they carry the soil and how they deposit it, how they 

 climb up in the cornstalk, and how they help the "root children" get drinks 

 and how they climb back into the clouds, each constitutes a story by itself. 



While the adventures of the Waterboys make the most original part of the 

 volume, there are many other nature stories that follow. The bacteria on the 

 roots of clover, the work of the chlorophyl in the tissues of the leaf, the action of 

 frost on the leaves, why the beans climb and all sorts of travels of seed babies 

 and finally the story of the "Plants that never were babies" which describes 

 the early stages of the ferns and mosses, the story of Mother Cornstalk and 

 the Seed Ear, these and many others make this little volume a mine of infor- 

 mation for children. An appendix contains explanatory notes for the teacher 

 or parent. There are thirty charming illustrations by E. H. Suydam. We 

 predict a large sale for this book for it is sure to prove a very important and 

 delightful addition to the children's book shelf. 



New Creations in Plant Life. W. S. Harwood, second edition revised and 

 enlarged, 430 pages, illustrated. The Macmillan Company, $2.00. 



This interesting volume is an authoritative account of the life and work of 

 Luther Burbank. As one follows the fortunes of Luther Burbank, as detailed 

 in the first chapter, one is carried away by sympathy for this man in his 

 struggles with privations and filled with admiration for the type of character 

 delineated. 



From cover to cover of this book the truth is stranger than fiction, and the 

 interest felt is absorbing. The reader is impressed with vivid glimpses of a 

 personality, whose paramount object, always overshadowing all else, was to 

 give aid to the human race. 



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