What Shall We Read To The Children: Treasure's from the Hunt Collection of Children's Literature
Chicken WorldThe Farm BookPocahontas and Capt. John SmithThe Railroad Book • The Seashore Book

 

The Seashore Book, story and pictures by E. Boyd Smith (Houghton Mifflin, 1912) In his second picture book about Bobby and Betty, Smith takes the children to Quohaug [or Quogue, as it is more commonly spelled today], on the Long Island shore, for an eventful summer vacation. With the avuncular Captain Ben Hawes as their knowledgeable guide, the children visit a boatyard and a sail maker's shop, witness the launch of one of the last great square-rigged ships, go clam digging, and learn to swim.

As in The Farm Book, Smith, with equal pride in the accomplishments of past and present generations, here deliberately sets out to record a pivotal historical moment: the change-over from wind- to steam-driven sea power. To underscore the point, Bobby and Betty return home to Manhattan "just in time to see the review of the country's war fleet on the Hudson, ... great, massive steel vessels, with no sails, driven by steam." For them, and doubtless for countless young American readers in the age of Manifest Destiny, it was the perfect conclusion to a summer that had, in the children’s estimate, been "more interesting than the most fascinating fairy book."




 


 

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