Show f. Books as Therapy New York public library in cooperation J. J with other social forces has compiled a anew new new extended and deleted list of books recommended recommended recommended mended for reading by boys anc and girls The e ide idea b behind hind i it i is by no means new but it is to be jI tried out along new lines It is one step forward forward for for- ward ward ard in substituting mental therapy for the bi big tick stick in the handling of juvenile delinquency it will or YI wonders ponders K U Uhe e young pub i get the treatment early enough In life Doubt springs however from the fact that inso in inso inso so large larg a number of cases by t the e time a de delinquent delinquent de- de boy or girl goes before a juvenile court he or she is all too familiar with the technique of mischief It would be worth a fortune to children and a boon to society if they were al always always always al- al ways caught in their first ventures in evil- evil doing The New York project in literary therapeutics tics was undertaken after a juvenile judge had ordered a youthful culprit to read a and d write reviews on on ona a stipulated d list of books With the the he li li- youthful or adolescent mind in view have gone to work The list omits omita the Robin lobin Hood tales but includes Lorna Do Done ne in n which there is a highwayman as romantic Now no one would hope to g get t very far with witha a book list in which the characters were invariably in j in-j variably as spotlessly good as Little Annie Rooney in thought and d deed ed A very young child cant can't be fooled with books that seem wholly at v variance with life as he sees it lived about him There must be a realism that h holds interest sufficiently to create lasting lating impressions ions even convictions s. s If s n-s not p present enforced reading will defeat its own wn purposes besides depriving the young reader of f wholesome whole whole- some ome and healthful play and exercise The important thing it would seem seem is that this his realism go all t the e way way to th the moral of the talc ale talc Crime doesn't pay and the sooner the knowledge of th the fa fact t is planted in the young mind the better That part of the going movie going public that demands the happy ending has something to answer for to misguided yo youth th The he outcry against screen productions depictIng depict depict- ing ng skullduggery and trickery usually misses the he point Evil is in life so why not look it it in the he face The trouble is s the realism doesn't last lasto to o the final sequence The evildoer doesn't live happily ever after If films anc and books only ended as life stories do there would be belittle belittle little ittle in print not fit to read and little on the screen not fit to see and hear |