Green cloth binding with gilt title on the spine. Black title and birds nest on the front board.

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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. REPRINT. Originally published in 1855. 8vo. (8 x 5.6 inches). Illustrated throughout with decorative head and tail pieces plus frontis and fifteen full page plates, each with a plain paper guard.  Some minor spotting to a few pages but generally a clean and bright copy in the publisher’s highly decorative green cloth binding with beveled edged boards. Elaborate gilt and blind stamped decoration and lettering to the front board. The rear board with a blind stamped decorative panel pattern. Spine fully decorated and lettered in gilt. Off white endpapers. All edges gilt.

Review: I am using this book as part of a homeschool curriculum. My oldest (age 10) just finished it; my middle child is about 1/3 of the way through; and my youngest will begin next year (around age 7) . These stories seem simple enough—maybe even a little quaint. The language is challenging, no doubt about that. The first year with my oldest, I wondered how she could possibly get anything out of these stories. I could barely understand. It turns out, she understood them better than I did. Over time, we both got used to the language (which, incidentally, has made reading other challenging texts much easier), and it flowed more and more easily. As I have read them to my oldest over the last three years, I am surprised by how deeply they have affected me and my kids. They bring the stories up in conversation. They relate them to things that are going on in their own lives. I find myself thinking through them at odd moments. In fact, the resolution of the robin has become my own declaration in the last two years.

If you are willing to do the work, if you can trust your kids and train them how to work through the text, if you can be patient with what you don’t know, you will be well-rewarded. If you are looking for a quick skim, an easy little moral tale, or if you think that kids need simplified language to hold their interest, this probably isn’t the book for you. It makes you work for your rewards. They are, however, well-worth the effort they require.