| THROUGH FAIRY HALLS MY BOOK CLUB 1965 THROUGH FAIRY HALLS OF MY BOOK HOUSE
Edited by Olive Beaupre’ Miller
Published by The Book House for Children, 1965
Preface:
“Through Fairy Halls” is intended for boys and girls who have reached the age when, with ever expanding imagination, they are most interested in the fantastic adventures of wonder tales. And the boys in particular have a still stronger need for some stories with quick, dramatic, violent action, such as the English folk tale “Jack the Giant-Killer”. So this volume abounds in adventurous folk tales from many different countries, like “The Princess on the Glass Hill” from the Norse; “The Twelve Months” from the Czechoslovakian; “The Lost Spear” from South Africa; and “The Strong Boy” from Canadian Indian folklore. It has humorous tales as well, such as “The Squire’s Bride” from the Norse; “The Three Wishes” from the Spanish; and “The Three Sillies” and “The Wise Men of Gotham” from the English. And it also includes a few of the more poetic tales like “The Sleeping Beauty” from the French and “The Moon Maiden” from the Japanese. The Bible is represented in this volume by the adventurous story of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”. And here for the first time you will find one of Shakespeare’s plays retold. Since boys and girls are now in the fairy tale age, the play selected is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which centers on Oberon, Titania and all their following of elves and fairies. Naturally Shakespeare belongs in the literary background of every child, since he will meet references to Shakespeare all his life. In various volumes of MY BOOK HOUSE we have four of Shakespeare’s plays retold – “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Tempest”, “The Winter’s Tale”, and “As You Like It” in addition to a number of rhymes and verses from Shakespeare. Tied up with fairy tales in Volume Six is “The Fairyland of Science”, which tells the story of how Jean Henri Fabre, the great French naturalist, discovered in the lives of the little jeweled insects of his garden, the Fairyland of Science. Here, too, the theme of art and music is carried on as it has been in all the books. In “The Wonderland of an Artist’s Workshop” Leonardo da Vinci is presented, not only in his capacity as an artist, but with his studio full of noisy apprentice boys all eagerly interested in trying out the new flying machine Da Vinci has just invented. And in “The Boy Who Made a Dream Come True”, a boyhood incident from the life of Titian is given. As to music, we have in this volume “A Musical Visit to Fairyland”, which tells how Felix Mendelssohn wrote the music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “The Duty That Was Not Paid”, a story of Mozart in childhood. Thus the stories in “Through Fairy Halls” relate music, art and science to literature in the period when boys and girls are of an age to wander freely in any sort of Wonderland  Book is in excellent conditon with white , crispt clean, no tears or repairs ! | 
