Books with author Anthony Irvin

The Ant-Lion is an African adventure story in which three English children are invited to a wildlife conservation ranch in Tanzania, where they befriend a Maasai boy. The four of them face hair-raising encounters with lions, elephants, snakes, buffaloes and bandits, as they seek to find valuable minerals that could save the ranch's finances and prevent its closure.

“I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?” said my brother's wife. “My dear Rose,” I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, “why in the world should I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know), I enjoy an enviable social position: I am brother to Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady, his countess. Behold, it is enough!” “You are nine-and-twenty,” she observed, “and you've done nothing but-” “Knock about? It is true. Our family doesn't need to do things.”

The time has been, but happily exists no longer, when it would have been necessary to offer an apology for such a book as this. In those days it was not held that Beauty is its own excuse for being; on the contrary, a spurious utilitarianism reigned supreme in literature, and fancy and imagination were told to fold their wings, and travel only in the dusty paths of every-day life. Fairy tales, and all such flights into the region of the supernatural, were then condemned as merely idle things, or as pernicious occupations for faculties that should be always directed to serious and profitable concerns. But now we have cast off that pedantic folly, let us hope for ever. We now acknowledge that innocent amusement is good for its own sake, and we do not affect to prove our advance in civilisation by our incapacity to relish those sportive creations of unrestricted fancy that have been the delight of every generation in every land from times beyond the reach of history. The materials of the following Collection have been carefully chosen from more than a hundred volumes of the fairy lore of all nations;

Although “Spilt Milk” is about the sorts of dangers and accidents that can and do happen in the home, it is also about protecting our most vulnerable in order to keep them safe while in a home environment. As a parent and someone already from a large family, it is instinct to make the home where you live a safe place for your child or children live and play. Our home is the safest place we know while growing up and so it is down to us as parents and adults to make our environment a safe place to be for ourselves as well as our children. It is our responsibility to teach our young how to be as safe as they can while playing in any environment. Apart from those things already mentioned, “Spilt Milk” is also about having an awareness of those things that perhaps we as adults may take for granted every day such as hanging cords from a blind or an ironing board still standing up or even a hot cup of tea on a table top. It would be fair to say that the more aware we are about danger in the home, the more aware our children will be which in turn is likely to make our home a safer environment for our children to play and make us as parents feel more secure about our child or children to playing when not in our direct sight.