Jennie Hall has written for children a book which they will love. Most of the supplementary literature offered to the schools is weighed down with information until the artistic simplicity and dramatic unity are gone. She has wisely given much needed and valuable information in "Descriptive Notes" at the end of the book, and has therefore been free to tell a pleasant and entertaining story.
Viking Tales will be a joy to children, because it deals with characters and events which are dear to a child's heart, and because the tales are told in an honest, artful style, which often catches the pure and lofty simplicity of the sagas themselves.
Of the three values of the book which Jennie Hall mentions in the "Suggestions to Teachers," the first one is by all means the greatest:
"The men, with the crude courage and the strange adventures that make a man interesting to children, have at the same time the love of truth, the hardy endurance, the faithfulness to plighted word, that make them a child's fit companion."
It is here one perhaps feels moved to say: "Give us more of this, more examples of the dashing and daring, more of that peculiar grim humor, more of that intense hatred and immeasurable love which moved these strong men to action."
There is much of the true Viking spirit in the book, and it certainly will receive a warm welcome by children and teachers alike.
