BEN FRANKLIN: Printer's Boy

Benjamin Franklin seems to be coming into his own in juvenile literature this year, with Inid Meadowcroft's excellent biography for somewhat older children (see page 208 published by Crowell, June 3rd), and the James Daugherty Poor Richard (see this issue, page 400). But Augusta Stevenson has no competitor for beginning readers and has done an excellent job, as good as the one she did in Abe Lincoln: Frontier Boy. She has a faculty for selecting incidents that give warmth and color and human interest appeal, and that fill in the only-too-often sketchy background of childhood and youth. One has a sense of fact even though she has taken the fictional biography form. One feels a part of the Franklin family life.