INTRODUCTION


It gives me sincere pleasure to introduce to mothers and kindergartners
a pioneer writer in the unexplored field of simple, realistic stories
for little children.

Miss Verhoeff is a trained kindergartner who has brought to her
profession a college training as well as a true devotion to children.

It was in one of the free kindergartens situated in the less fortunate
localities of Louisville that the stories of Johnnie Jones came into
being, and grew in response to the demand of the little ones for
stories about real children.

In the beautiful world of fairy-lore we have a rich and splendidly
exploited field of immortal literature. The old, old stories of
fairies and elves, of giants and dwarfs, of genii, princes, and knights
with their wonder-working wands, rings and swords, will never grow
threadbare; while the spiritual, artistic and literary value of these
stories in the life of child-imagination can never be overestimated.
Enchanting and valuable as they are, however, they should not blind us
to the need for standard realistic stories of equal literary and poetic
merit.

A child needs not only the touch of the wonder-working wand which
transports him to a land of fascinating unrealities, but also the
artistic story which reflects the every-day experiences of real life;