The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats is a beautifully illustrated book with the words to the popular Christmas song. Each page contains only one or two lines of the song and so is perfect for younger children. The song is about a little boy who is told to bring a gift for the birth of Jesus, but he replies "Baby Jesus, I am a poor boy, too" and so he plays his drum for him instead. This is a simple story about giving from the heart. Singing the words is a perfect way to interest a reluctant child in books and also perfect to coax reluctant dads (or mums) to sing to their children. The music is written out at the end of the story if you aren't familiar with the tune but it would be easier to listen out for it at Christmas. This book is one the most requested in our household and, of course, we sing it all year long.

Henry C. Carey was the head of the American Philosophical Society--founded by Franklin--in the mid-nineteenth century. His circles were those who built and rebuilt the USA. In this volume he details some of the grand historical, strategic elements at play in the matter of slavery in the modern era around the globe. It is a view laregly forgotten in our day but it was the view of Carey and his circle--including his pupil: Abraham Lincoln.

This is a very early work of H.C. Carey and perhaps his worst. He cites England and its private central bank as good institutions--a judgment he was shortly, and permanently, to change--as when he labelled England's economico-financial system "the most inimicable to human happiness that has ever been devised." Readers are better off beginning with almost any other Carey book--the Principle of Political Economy, if one has the background and time to spend on these tomes.