An anthology of literature for the youngest children including American and British nursery rhymes, fables, folk tales, poems and stories, as well as from many other sources.

An illustrated collection of more than 75 tales from the world's folklore and literature, including Aesop's "Belling the Cat," Lear's "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat," and Tolstoy's "Uncle Mitya's Horse," plus stories and verse by Whitman, Blake, Sandburg, and others.

Contains tales by known authors, and traditional stories from various cultures and regions around the world.

From the Foreword: Friends of Moon and Winds-so were the Japanese poets called who wrote the tiny poems that comprise the greater part of this book. Dewdrops of smallest compass are they, yet mirroring in vivid flashes the whole of Japanese life. In few words of primitive, childlike simplicity these old sages sang, for the little hokku poems are gems of only three lines comprising no more than seventeen syllables, the tiniest poems in the world. These minute gems, however, usher one into that atmosphere of tender sympathy with all that has life, that world of benign serenity where dwelt the ancient poets of Japan. Cricket, butterfly, bee, and frog, stars, flowers, winds-these were the things of which they sang. What could be more simple or within the understanding of the smallest child? Yet here is real poetry, and not mere doggerel, the finest poetry of Japan. -- Provided by publisher.

An anthology of literature for the youngest children including nursery rhymes, fables, folk tales, poems and stories primarily from American and British sources but from many other places, too.

Anthology includes stories and poems by Juliana Horatia Ewing, the Brothers Grimm, Palmer Cox, Charles Perrault, William Allingham, Arthur Ransome, Oscar Wilde, Hans Andersen and Sarah Orne Jewett.

The jolly and exciting tale of the little boy who lost his red coat and his blue trousers and his purple shoes but who was saved from the tigers to eat 169 pancakes for his supper, has been universally loved by generations of children. First written in 1899, the story has become a childhood classic and the authorized American edition with the original drawings by the author has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Little Black Sambo is a book that speaks the common language of all nations, and has added more to the joy of little children than perhaps any other story. They love to hear it again and again; to read it to themselves; to act it out in their play.