The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Books.

Girls' Physical Training, by A. R. James (Macmillan, 7/6), being a series of healthy and artistic exercises set to music. Here we have ball drills, ring drills, dumb-bell drills, marches, &c., with such exact instructions for every movement, and such capital illustrations, that the work should be especially useful in families where the technical details of physical training are a little difficult to arrive at. The introduction and the explanatory chapter are wise and thoughtful, and should be especially useful to teachers.

Good Morning, Good Night, by F. J. Cross (second edition) (Cassell and Co.) Earnest readings for little people for morning and evening for a month, with many little tales which should stimulate the children in a virtuous endeavour and earnest Christian life.

["Good Morning! Good Night! Morning and Evening Readings for Children," by Frederick J. Cross was not found onine, but his book "Beneath the Banner: Being Narratives of Noble Lives and Brave Deeds" is at Project Gutenberg.]

The Temple Reader (second edition), by E. E. [Ernest Edwin] Speight (Marshall, 1/6). We have pleasure in welcoming a new edition of Mr. Speight's Temple Reader. We have already expressed our keen appreciation of Mr. Speight's Temple Reader. The volume will be meat and drink to many a child with the true literary hunger upon him. Nothing is too good for children, we should think, is Mr. Speight's motto, and we get extracts which are introductions from the best that we have. Probably there is nothing in the volume that is not literature, served up, too, without any teasing notes and explanations. The present edition is enriched by an introduction from Professor Dowden, in which he says, "to have even heard of Cervantes, of Dante, of Spenser, of Keats, is a step in education." We entirely agree, and hence the value of this important volume. The present edition in an introduction to pictorial art as well as to literary. It contains beautiful reproductions of Hilton's Keats, Hazlitt's Lamb, Talfourd's Mrs. Browning, Michael Angelo's Moses, etc., etc.

Twenty-four Songs for Little People, by G. F. [Gerard Francis] Cobb (Parts I. and II., 2/6 each, Novello). It is not easy to write songs for little people, but Norman Gale has the art.

"When Aunt Jan's coming there's such romping in the house,
She's sweeter than a daffodil and softer than a mouse;
She sings about the passages and never wants to rest,
And father says it's all because a bird is in her breast."

--Baby Ned, too, is a delightful person. Mr. Gerard F. Cobb has done his work sympathetically. His aim has been "to observe such conditions in his settings as to make it easy for children to join in singing them themselves." These songs will be an acquisition for the nursery.

[Cobb's collection is described as settings of some of Norman Gale's "Songs for Little People"; he probably set some of Gale's poems to music.]

The School Music Review, issued month by month, contains capital songs in both notations suitable for children of various ages.

The Pianoforte, by Francisco Berger (Novello, 2/6). A thorough and well-graduated instruction book, its purpose evidently being, not only to teach the pupil, but to teach the teacher how to teach.

Six Italian Songs, arranged by G. Stainer (Novello, 2/6). We are very glad to welcome a good collection of songs from operas to cantatas by Italian composers, with Italian and English words.

Novello's School Songs (6d. each) give useful instruction in both tonic and sol-fa and staff notation.

The Everyday Songs will be very welcome to teachers of classes in schools.

The Twelve Action Songs, by Miles Foster are in the style of kindergarten songs--pretty and simple.

The Hours, by Joseph Roeckel. A cantata for female voices, with easy soli and choruses, especially suited for school concerts. The fact that the tonic sol-fa notation is added will make it welcome to teachers of schools.

Proofread by LNL, June 2020