Flying Sails
Olive Beaupre Miller
Hardcover
(The Book House for Children, March 15, 1937)
Volume 8 of 12 Volumes of the My Book House series. Cloth binding with paste-down illustration by J. Allen St. John on front cover. Gold gilt lettering on front and spine. Illustrated end papers. Duo-tone, tri-tone, and black and white illustrations throughout. 1937. Chicago: The Book House for Children. 224 pages. The Book House for Children was the brainchild of author and editor, Olive Beaupre Miller. Miller was constantly seeking appropriate children's literature to read to her daughter. She considered stories proper if they fit three criteria: They had to be well written, make a positive ethical statement, and be graded to fit the developmental age of the child. If she was unable to find a story or poem that met all three requirements, she wrote one herself. Eventually, she created a collection of children's literature that has delighted both children and their parents for nearly a century. The stories and poems in this volume include: The Adventures of General Tom Thumb, a true story by Phineas T. Barnum; Afar in the Desert by Thomas Pringle; A Boy on the High Seas by Olive Beaupre Miller; A Christmas Song at Sea by Alfred Noyes; The Circus Man by Phineas T. Barnum; The Enchanted Island by Howard Pyle; Gulliver's Travels to Lilliput by Jonathan Swift; Maggie Tulliver Goes to Live with the Gypsies by George Eliot; The Magic Horse from The Arabian Nights; Meg Merrilies by John Keats; Mr. Hampden's Shipwreck by John Masefield; Recollections of the Arabian Nights by Alfred Tennyson; A Song of Drake's Men by Alfred Noyes; The Story of the Talking Bird from The Arabian Nights; The Tempest, told from the play by William Shakespeare; A Wanderer's Song by John Masefield; and Young Midshipman David Farragut.