FAMOUS STORYTELLERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Loosely interpreted, storytellers means folklorists (the Grimms, Padraic Colum), fantasists (Andersen, George MacDonald, Dinah Maria Mulock, Frank Baum, Kenneth Grahame) and writers of more or less realistic fiction (Mary Mapes Dodge, Margaret Sidney, Kate Douglas Wiggin); the only thread connecting the twenty two is the authorship of at least one work well-loved at some time by younger children. (Only this criterion can account for Thackeray and Ruskin.) The trouble is that the diligent recapitulation of the chronology of each, with shallow characterization and less background, has no relevance to the child who'd be reading the story and fails altogether as an introduction to the excerpt which concludes each chapter. Further, the tone is prissy (""a fine boy with a superior mind"") and condescending (""but he never sank to the level of the poor people who surrounded him""). For the record, the others are Frances Browne, Lucretia Hale, Charlotte Yonge, Frank Stockton, Mrs. Molesworth, Mrs. Swing, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Howard Pyle and E. Nesbit.