The Elson Readers

The Elson Readers, Book Three offers children longer, more complex, and complete stories and poems than Primer, Book One, and Book Two had offered. The text, while eminently readable, is now more normally proportioned and spaced. Still drawing on classics of children s literature from sources as varied as Aesop, the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, American Indian stories, Greek legends, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edward Lear, and adaptations of the Biblical stories of Joseph and David; this volume is filled with literary treasures with which a child should be made familiar on their road to cultural literacy. While charmingly illustrated, there are fewer pictures, and the emphasis is on the literature now that the child has less need for visual clues to understand the text. The Word List has really become a glossary and contains pronunciation guides to the words, which have been updated to current pronunciation notation."