THE CHILDREN'S ART SERIES.

THESE are the "paint bogies," and below is little Flossy Tangleskein, to whom, with Ruby Rose, they told their "colorful" stories, when the two little people visited Mr. Rose's studio. The strangest thing about these bogies was that "they had a power more wonderful than telling stories-that of making them happen;" so that in "All Around the Palette," which Mrs. Lizzie W. Champney has written, and "Champ," her husband, has illustrated with more than a hundred of the cleverest of pictures, and Lockwood, Brooks & Co. have published in pretty shape, other little people may read not only the stories told to Ruby and Flossy, but what happened to their very selves. Mrs. Champney is a charming writer for children, and with her "In the Sky-Garden" of last year, she hit on the bright idea of telling the little people no little about astronomy in the course of her delightful story. This year the idea has been followed out with "The Children's Art Series," of which "All Around the Palette" is the initial volume, to which will be added, next year, a story about architecture. The plan is a capital one, and in this volume she succeeds in telling children as much about art, its history, its masters, and its technique, as they could glean from many a history. The book is one of the very prettiest juveniles of the season; the price is $1.50. The illustrations are wonderfully varied and all charming, and fit the text most happily, as becomes a book gotten up by husband and wife. We suspect, indeed, that the opening paragraph of the book lets the reader really into the secret of how the book came about; only the portraits heading this article are not quite accurate portraits of Mr. and Mrs. "Champ." "Stories and pictures, it was all the doing of the two Paint Bogies; sometimes Carrie (cature) told the stories and Tint made the illustrations, but more frequently Tint was the speaker, while the other Paint Bogy drew caricatures and made fun of all that Tint said. Not a very polite way of conducting herself, but the Paint Bogies were both merry little bodies, and never got provoked with each other."

in some slight measure, by the pictures we give here. But it is only in a very slight measure for, indeed, no two or three samples can ever suggest the variety that the pretty book contains. Here are splendid pictures of horses, and dogs, and cows, and donkeys; portraits, by the score, of the dearest little people in the world; wood-cuts from famous pictures; funny silhouettes and quaint devices, music pages, long stories and short stories, bright songs and funny verses, and-but we might go on and cover the four hundred pages of the book. It is, in brief, exceedingly pretty, and any child may have it for whom 'somebody is willing to spend so little as $1.25; and certainly that is very little money for the delights any darling will enjoy in getting the book, or any papa or marama, or uncle or aunt, or papa's friend, or anybody else, will obtain, in turn, from the thanks of the grateful recipient. What a splendid time old Santa Claus himself must have in carrying around his stacks of such beautiful books as these to the children!

"THESE books were written for the amusement of children. They contain some of the doings of Nathan, Philippa, and Lucy Bodley, their father and mother, the hired man Martin and his brother Hen, Nathan's cousin Ned, Nathan's pig, the dog Neptune, Lucy's kitten, Lucy's doll, Mr. Bottom the horse, chickens, mice; and have, besides, stories told to the children by their parents, by Martin, and by each other." It is Mr. Horace E. Scudder who has written them, and he knows all about children, and the children know all about him; for he is the one who told of "Dream Children," and of "Seven Little People and their Friends;" and he has two dear little girls of his own, to whom, indeed, these Bodley books are dedicated:

TO SYLVIA AND ETHEL.

They came by night at the turn of the year;
One was dark and one was fair;

It would have been lonely for one to be here,

So both came down the heavenly stair.

The books, of which the price is $1.50 each, are "The Doings of the Bodley Family," published last year, but issued this season in most beautiful new fashion, in a cover of Japanesque figured paper, with strikingly rich decorations, and "The Bodleys Telling Stories," new this year, and quite as bril. liant in binding as its companion book. The variety of stories, sketches, verses, and pictures inside these handsome covers is the more remarkable, since they all reach a high standard of excellence, either from the literary or the juvenile point of view. One of the features of the later book is that it is "steeped in the atmosphere of American history." The Bodleys live near Boston, and, in taking their little people to drive, they visit almost all the historical places of its neighborhood. And so the children even play history. Many classical poems are also woven into the story as recitations of the children. And, above all, as one of the critics observes, "their author is the most serene and non-sensational story-teller for children, and therefore the

best antidote for 'fire-water' that we have. He does everything with the complete finish that characterizes the work of those only who see their end from the beginning, and so are never in a hurry."

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