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HILDREN'S Book Week in Portland, Oregon, was celebrated by the whole city due to the enterprise of the J. K. Gill Company and the cooperation of the librarians, teachers, and school associations. The fifth annual Week was greater success than any of the earlier ones because of well-planned publicity designed to appeal to both parents and children. The working out of the details was thoro and painstaking, while the imagination and enthusiasm which was brought to the task assured success.

All of the usual publicity methods were employed, school and library exhibits and talks, window displays, newspaper advertising, and bookplate contests. But the Portland Week was remarkable chiefly because these usual features were handled so as to form a well-rounded, complete week with each feature of the program continuing smoothly from the last and adding new effectiveness to carry on to the next. Thus

the Week was a gradual crescendo terminated by the double celebration staged on Saturday afternoon in the Boys and Girls Own Shop in the Gill store. It was because of the personal interest and hard work of those striving to strengthen the appeal of books and because of the imagination shown in the advertising and the play that the Week exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.

During the week the Gill advertisements featured Gillikin, an elfish sprite who was revealed in the play, "And Then Came Gillikin," as the spirit of good books. Proceeding the play a pantomime was enacted in the largest window of the Gill store. This was called "Book Land Folks" in which children, portraying the various characters in fiction, stepped from the pages of an immense book. The local street car company gave impetus to the Week by carrying, without charge, on the front of their cars, cards, bearing the slogan that ap

peared thruout the city, "Books Build Character, Your Child Deserves the Best, Give Him Worthy Books."

This fifth annual Children's Book Week convinced the parents and children of Portland of the entertainment to be had from all the many kinds of children's books. And the Week convinced the J. K. Gill Company that the success and goodwill of this year assure a still greater Week next fall.

A Novel Book Week

A LITTLE different slant to Children's

Book Week observance was intro

duced at the A. T. Lewis & Son Department Store in Denver, where a program called "Story Book Friends" was given, which was a series of character dances in costume by fourteen pupils of Georgia Lane, who is Denver's most popular dancing instructor.

The character dances were given by well-known figures in children's stories. There was Little Red Ridinghood who tripped along to her Grandmother's on her toes; there was little Jack Horner, who in dance pantomime worked hard to pull the plum out of the pie; Hansel and Gretel did a little peasant dance. There was the Blue Bird of Happiness, Raggedy Ann, The Snow Queen and Cinderella.

Two performances were given in the Auditorium, and attracted so much attention that hundreds had to be turned away, and it has been requested that the performance be repeated. The store gave all the children who took part little story books as souvenirs of the occasion.

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As the Editor Sees Book Week

O much significant and helpful comment has appeared in the newspapers during Children's Book Week, it seems invidious to choose selections for comment, but the following editorial which appeared recently

in the New York World well states the meaning of the Week.

"Concerning Children's Book Week, which falls this week, it is the first impulse to connect the occasion with the approach of the Christmas season, in which, as everybody knows, a book is the thing most certain to be included in the list of gifts to the child. As a matter of fact, this Book Week has come under current conditions to be a factor, and a very important one, in the All-the-Year-Round-Selling movement among bookmen and educational organizations.

"Statistics have been collected of late to show just how pertinent to prevailing customs is this movement, and how successfully the idea has impressed itself both upon young readers and upon those who are charged with the responsibility of developing readers' tastes among our boys and girls. The figures were amazing, as recently published, revealing the strength of the demand for juvenile publications in what used to be considered the off-season for such sales.

"The quality of the boy-and-girl literature has, in the larger run, improved. Much of the trash that formerly held place between the alphabet books and the earliest schoolday stories has disappeared. Most of the drawings and color-work are better in the books for young readers. Stories of grammar and high school affairs take on a closer resemblance to life and carry suggestions, without preachiness, of real purposes in experience outside of school ally themselves school pursuits. Books of adventure and with facts of history and of progressive industrialism."

Elder's Gallery Busy

PAUL ELDER'S shop in San Francisco and his gallery were used to unusual advantage during Children's Book Week, when there was a display of a rather remarkable collection of the originals of book illustrations, representing the work of many famous illustrators, and shipped to the gallery from a score of the leading publishers. Some of the artists represented included E. Boyd Smith, Frank E. Schoonover, the Petershams, Charles B. Falls, Frederick Richardson and Maurice Day.

The gallery also showed each day at ten o'clock the three-reel picture film made by Doubleday, Page & Company entitled "The Making of a Book"; and every afternoon at two o'clock there were lectures on such

subjects as: "Why We Read to Children," "The American Boy and His Reading," "Illustrations and Illustrators," and "The Mother's Part in the Child's Reading."

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ATELY, we have been talking to some town and country booksellers about the conditions of bookselling this fall, and the consensus of opinion is that, on the whole, it is not so very bad, and that before the year passes it may have proved to have been a very fair year. Three London men said that trade was quite good, while another felt it might be very much better, indeed, altho it was not absolutely bad. A central London bookseller had many regrets at the "awful volume of new publications" which he had to face and decide whether to buy or not each week. He frequently took the line of least resistance and passed them. Country booksellers, in spite of Britain's tremendous amount of unemployment, are decidedly hopeful, altho they admit that people are cautious about spending their money. Looking at the field from every point of view, we are of the opinion that 1923 will turn out to be a medium year. Judging it, with the memory of the unemployment situation before us, and bearing in mind the restlessness of the political. world, we should say that the year will prove to be somewhat above the medium. Travelers bring into the publishing office from all quarters, of the land and from Ireland fair reports, cautious maybe, but never pessimistic.

A company has been registered under the title of British Weekly, Ltd. Its directors are Sir Ernest Hodder Williams and Robert Percy Hodder Williams. The business of the company is to acquire and carry on the famous British Weekly and also to carry on the business of publishers. The nominal capital is £50,000 in 50,000 shares of £1 each. Booksellers who also have a news counter find the British Weekly a lucrative weekly to stock, especially in the north and in Scotland. As a matter of fact, it has a big sale thruout Great Britain, and many folk use it as a guide for their book buying and quote it when taking their orders to the bookshop.

R. A. Austen-Leigh, of the Federation of Master Printers, gave an address recently at the Stationers' Hall on "The Romance of the Printing Craft." Printing, he said, was at first a labor-saving substitute for writing. It was a revolution in method and not in form. The real revolution in form was the book, when clay tablets gave way to rolls

of reed and rolls to books as we now know them. Rolls were known in Egypt in Tutankhamen's time. They were written on in columns, as in the modern newspaper. The roll form remained until the second century B. C., and was not superseded until the fourth century A. D. The use of skins as a writing material led to codex or the book form as it is known today. A writing material made from pulp and rags was used in the East in the 10th century, but not commonly used until the 15th century. The aim of the first printers was to copy the manuscript book as closely as possible After many centuries the best manuscript had become almost perfect. A copy of the Mazarin Bible, printed by Gutenberg, of 1456, was regarded as manuscript until about 1870.

The bookselling trade is looking forward to doing a great business with the new complete edition of R. L. S. which Messrs Heinemann are publishing. The advance orders are many. The success is already assured. The cloth edition is to be published at 2s, 6d and the leather at 4s, 6d. There should also be a big sale for the American edition when it appears.

The following paragraph appears in the Newspaper World:

publishing houses are advertising their Retail newsagents are pleased that more trade terms. Odhams Press, Ltd., and Weldon's were pioneers, and now Messrs. Hutchinson's have taken space giving full particulars, both of selling and cost prices, with additional information of per cent profit. This is all to the good of the movement for better understanding with publishers. Wholesalers continue to make it difficult for their customers to obtain goods at stated figures.

The late Sir William Robertson Nicoll's library was sold the other day, and we were surprised that it fetched only £1,000. Apparently it did not contain many first editions, altho we happen to know that it was as fine a working library as any journalist could have.

There is an interesting discussion proceeding as to the desirability of staining the top edges of books. The Newsagent even

says, "When will booksellers insist upon publishers staining the edges of the books they publish?" I believe John Lane was the publisher who first thought of it. The Newsagent continues:

I should say that at least 50 per cent of the stock we have to reduce in price is due to the soiled edges which makes the book second-hand. The top edge at least ought to be treated after the fashion adopted by Messrs. Dent with their "Everyman Library" and other editions. No matter what class of bookshop you visit, if you examine the top edges of the stock you will see the tell-tale marks made by dust and handling. This is not thru carelessness, either, for this wear and tear cannot be avoided in a bookshop where customers turn over stock. It applies to the stock of even the most careful of us. Some booksellers lay strips of paper along the top of the books to keep the dust off, but even that does not protect them when a customer pulls out a book from the shelf with not very clean fingers, or worse still, when he has soiled gloves on. The cost of staining should not be very great, and as publishers are keeping up the prices in most cases, the increased profits should allow them to do this without much sacrifice. Anyway, we retailers ought to insist on its being done to every book published at 2s. and over.

Some best sellers: Lucas. Advisory Ben. Bennett. Riceyman Steps. Swift. Only These. Hutten. Pam at Fifty. Mordaunt. Reputation.

Farnol. Sir John Dering.

Maxwell. The Day's Journey.
Curzon. Tales of Travel.
Hamilton. Old Days and New.
Spender. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
Churchill. The World Crisis.
Nevill. The World of Fashion.
Vachell. Fellow Travelers.

The next volume in Laurie's Privately Printed Library will be by W. B. Yeats, who has just been awarded the £4,000 Nobel prize for literature. His new book explains in many ways the symbolism.

which is at the back of all Mr. Yeats' work. It is to be entitled "A Vision, an Explanation of Life Founded Upon the Writings of Gyraldus and Certain Arabic Traditions." It will be issued in a limited edition, numbered and signed by the author.

Putnam

Bookstore
2 53. 5%

For Gristmas
Books

Why?

Because their worth is not measured by the price.

A good book of trifling cost has a dignity possessed by no other gift.

Its value is lasting-a constant reminder of the giver's loving thoughtfulness.

It is a compliment to the intelligence of your friend.

It is the easiest gift to choose.

During December store hours from 9 to 6

A CONVINCING AD FOR CHRISTMAS TIME USED BY PUTNAM'S RETAIL STORE, NEW YORK

Cecil Palmer, in connection with the publishing of a new novel entitled "All That Matters," by Pearl Weymouth, is offering a prize of £25 to the reader who sends in the best opinion of it on a postcard and £15 for distribution among the assistants of the bookseller or librarian from whom the writer of the winning postcard secured his copy of the book.

The meeting place next year of the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland Conference will be Oxford. A wellknown Oxford bookseller told us the other day how everyone is looking forward to it.

Sir John M. Clark, of the famous Edinburgh publishing house of T. & T. Clark, has retired from the position of managing director. His son, Mr. Thomas Clark, has taken the vacated position.

¶¶A NEW THREE-VOLUME SET of Sara Teasdale's poems has been published by Macmillan. The set includes "Flame and Shadow," "Rivers to the Sea," and "Love Songs.' The last was awarded the $500 prize offered by Columbia University for the best volume of poetry by an American published during the year.

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