From Dec. 3 to 24, 1912 and 1913, the exhibit of Christmas books
for children and young people was kept open by the library in the
large room in the annex. The exhibit included three or four
hundred volumes, picture books by the best American, English,
French, German, Italian, Danish, and Russian illustrators,
inexpensive copies and also new and beautiful editions of old
favorites, finely illustrated books attractive to growing-up
young people, and the best of the season's output. It had many
visitors, some of them coming several times. We sent a special
invitation to the students in the Hartford Art Society, some of
whom are hoping to be illustrators, and appreciate the picture-
books highly.

The boys' and girls' room received last winter a fine photo-
graphic copy of Leighton's "Return of Persephone," in time for
Hawthorne's version of the story, which is usually read when
pomegranates are in the market and again six months later, when
Persephone comes up to earth and the grass and flowers begin to
spring.

One day John Burroughs made an unexpected visit to the room, and
it happened that when the children reading at the tables were
told who he was, and asked who of them had read "Squirrels and
furbearers," the boy nearest him held up his hand with the book
in it. That boy will probably never forget his first sight of a
real live author!

Last winter we received a gift of a handsome bookcase with glass
doors, which we keep in the main library, filled with finely
illustrated books for children to be taken out on grown-up cards