Stories from History

The New Junior Classics: The Young Folks Shelf of Books #8

by Mabel Williams

22 works, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by such authors as Howard Pyle with a chapter from his Men of Iron; Andrew Lang; Hendrik Van Loon with 2 chapters from his Story of Mankind; Ester Forbes with a chapter from Johnny Tremain; Carl Sandburg from his biography on Abraham Lincoln; Robert Trumbull with a chapter from his autobiography on surviving a WW2 plane crash and survival in the ocean for 34 days; Ernie Pyle, WW2 war correspondent, with a reprinted article of heroism; chapters from biographies on Abraham Lincoln; an General MacArtherLouisa May Alcott; and a tall tale about The Devil and Daniel Webster

380 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A warming collection of twenty-some narratives. While many are naive, dated, benighted, bigoted yet the sensitive modern reader can be enlightened in the reading.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume Eight of The New Junior Classics is entitled Stories from History. The word "from" is important here, because not all of these stories are strictly historical accounts. There are elements of legend here, which is not a bad thing.

We have stories from ancient Greece, including the tale of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, a story current enough to have been made into a movie recently. We have the story of Joan of Arc. We have a lovely account of a Christmas concert in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. There are stories from the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. There are tales of the frontier, including one from the viewpoint of a Sioux Indian. We have a taste of Carl Sandburg's biography of Abraham Lincoln. The volume concludes with a first-person account of being shot down over the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War.

Doubtful though some of the history, these are exciting, and sometimes edifying stories. I thoroughly enjoyed this volume of the series.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love all of these Junior Classics; they give the reader glimpses of many great literature pieces and stories from history.