My Book House - 12-Volume Set

What Olive Beaupre Miller said about theMy Book Houseseries:

InMy Book House, I have tried to give children the best in literature, gathered from the greatest authors of the past and present, and from our rich heritage of old folk tales, told from generation to generation in every country in the world. But I have selected those stories with care. Avoiding those tales where evil traits of character, such as lying and cheating to gain one's ends, have been made to appear good, I have chosen only those where truly desirable qualities invite the child's admiration. I have tried also to grade all this material as wisely as possible, that the child might have the right story at the right age, and to put it forth so beautifully illustrated that it would be irresistable to him. Here, in these twelve volumes, adult and child can enter, hand-in-hand, a wonderful realm of imagination and beauty, portrayed in the best literary forms of verse and prose....

"The permanent value ofMy Book Housearises from the fact that at the time of its inception, I had no pet theory of education to advance.... I was in search of fundamentals, simple fundamentals, which must remain eternally true. Chaos then existed and is, unfortunately, still permitted to exist, in the realm of reading for children. They were being given stories, ethically sound, all jumbled up with those where the ethical slant was bad, and stories for the older children were being read to the child when he was too young, overwhelming him with fright and confusion by presenting to him characters and situations far beyond his understanding at the moment. Out of this chaos I was trying to bring order, an order that could never be disturbed. So let me review a few basic principles, with which I emerged from my search and on which I builtMy Book House.

• "First, to be well equipped for life, to have ideas and the ability to express them, the child needs a broad background of familiarity with the best in literature.
• Second, his stories and rhymes must be selected with care that he may absorb no distorted view of life and its actual values, but may grow up to be mentally clear about values and emotionally impelled to seek what is truly desirable and worthwhile in human living.
• Third, the stories and rhymes selected must be graded to the child's understanding at different periods of his growth, graded as to vocabulary, as to subject matter and as to complexity of structure and plot.

"On those three simple fundamentals My BOOK HOUSE was built."

This series is unique in that each volume gets progressively more difficult. Volume one begins with nursery rhymes, the second and third volumes progress to fairy tales and short stories. By volume 6, students are reading adaptations of Shakespeare and sections of Wizard of Oz. By volume 9, they are reading adventure stories by James Daughterty and Theodore Roosevelt. And in volume 12, they are exposed to stories by Dickens and Tolstoy.

The twelve volumes include:

1. In the Nursery
2. Story Time
3. Up One Pair of Stairs
4. Through the Gate
5. Over the Hills
6. Through Fairy Halls
7. The Magic Garden
8. Flying Sails
9. The Treasure Chest
10. From the Tower Window
11. In Shining Armor
12. Halls of Fame