THE WATER - BABIES | Rare 1896 EDITION | Hardcover | World's greatest classics | Children fairy tales story book | Illustrated

This is a cheap Indian edition school text book, with poor illustrations published by Madhuban publishers, The product cover photo is misleadingly shown as that of the classic edition which had beautiful illustrations by Warwick Goble. The actual cover photo of the book that I recieved ( and then returned) is shown in the attached image

Die 200 normalen Seiten wurden hier in 60 Seiten zusammengefasst. Dadurch wird die Schriftgröße viel zu klein und das lesen war mir zu anstrengend.Das Buch ging leider zurück.

The printing was good, and some of the bits of the story very engaging. If you imagine a father talking to the personality of a particular son, I think you realise what motivated the writer. And that means that some bits might not "fit" you. If your child enjoys animals and the outdoors, and you're happy for them to be steeped in the doctrines of justice (Bedonebyasyoudid) and the golden rule (Doasyouwouldbedoneby) then this is a good allegory for growing up right. But there are still anachronisms that will only work if it's a read-aoud and the reader is educated enough in Victorian history to stop and explain the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace; the strictness of the Victorian class system; the plight of working class children and especially chimney sweeps.

A Fourth or Fifth grade Sunday school teacher I had once pointed out that Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" was not just a book for children. The same can be said for "The Water Babies" by Charles Kingsley. On the surface it is a delightful fairy tale. However, it has layers of philosophy and allegory that only a mature mind could grasp. This is a classic, indeed, for all ages.

I read this as part of a book club. It was an interesting perspective of Victorian views & values in the time just after Darwin's Origin of Species. It is 'voiced' as an adult telling a story to a boy, 'my little man', but even so was squirmingly patronising. It has laudable views on the condition of the poor, and Kingsley's powers of description are superb, but he tends to ramble off into endless, moralising diversions that have no relevance to the story. It radiates the view that every English (not British) boy should be a plucky little chap, be he never so base-born, and if he displays the right sort of courage he might be a gentleman. His views on the Irish, the Welsh, and occasionally other races, made even this proud-to-be-English reader cringe. A book for a thick-skinned social historian, not for pleasure.

This book was featured in the Amazon Kindle discussion on public domain recommendations (http://www.amazon.com/Public-Domain-Recommendations/forum/FxBVKST06PWP9B/Tx1J0I9GW9YTY6/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B000FI73MA).While putatively for children, this one has a bit of an edge. Cryptozoology fans may know it from a quotation used in On the Track of Unknown Animals. It has social commentary, and especially commentary on science. Here's a quick quote to give you a sense of the feel:==================="Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant, especially if it is a loose wall with the stones all set on edge, and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly, but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth of a split second, and the pain which comes after them does not."=================This is also the start of the quotation used in On the Track of Unknown Animals:===================="And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies..."===================While the Harry Potter books are certainly mountains of kid lit, The Water Babies is clearly a peak in the same range.Bufo Calvin