Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/107

 

WHAT SHALL A GIRL READ?

Y dearest comrade, my chosen friend is the girl who loves to read. I am thankful that there are so many of her. Her voice comes crying from the wilderness, "What shall I read?" And I, sitting among my books, feel that in my own way I must answer her question. But first I want to tell her how to read. She must not attempt a book that does not interest her. It may be true that she has taken it up because she has expected it to improve her, but that will never happen unless heart and brain alike are working on the thoughts bound between the covers. Mere reading by the eyes is of no value, we may read page after page and then put the book down and find that we know nothing whatever about it.

The book that is a friend to me may be a stupid, tiresome acquaintance to another, therefore no one person can say what will interest the other. In the last few years there have been in-