A Book for Jerry by Maud Van Buren

_Sarah Addington_

It seemed to Jerry that he would really die if he didn't get a book / that Christmas. Here he was, eight years old, learning to read, liking / to read better than almost anything else in the world, and he had no / book to read from. He read at school in books furnished by somebody / or other, Jerry didn't know who, but that wasn't enough. Jerry wanted / a book for his very own. He wanted it big enough to carry under his / arm, and small enough to put under his pillow at night. He wanted it / to have stories in it about bears and St. Bernards and dragons and / boys -- no girls; stories, too, about snakes and explorers and boats and / soldiers. He wanted the book to have red and yellow and green pictures / of airplanes and lions and pirates, one picture on every page.[17]