THE BIG WORLD AND THE LITTLE HOUSE

This is a book with a purpose — but not too emphatically that to lose out as a quite charming story of how a family brought a house back to life. At the start of the story- told in pictures by Marc Simont and expanded captions by Ruth Krauss — the little house is neglected, tumbledown, the prey of storm and loneliness. The pictures express this dismal quality. Then comes a family, three generations and pets as well- and the house begins to take on life, and at the end becomes a home rather than just a shell of a house — a part of its surroundings- and, through radio and television and telephone, a part of the world. It is this phase that doesn't quite come true to the adult reader, who realizes that the contribution is a receptive one, not a contributing one- and the family remains identified with the house rather than the world. But this doesn't much matter in a book which has its own story.