One feels the breath of the sea and the roar of the breakers in Laura E. Richards's "Captain January", a well-written story of a lighthouse island on the Maine Coast. Here, among "the winds and the waves and the wild uproar, lives Captain January, the lighthouse keeper, and little "Star," a beautiful child who as a baby was washed ashore from a wreck. Captain January's character as a genuine sailor is especially well drawn, and his talk and maxims are typical of a man of strong feelings, shrewd common-sense, and manliness. His doctrine for raising a baby is basically only three things: "The Lord's help, common-sense, and a cow," and this works very well in such hands as his. The story of his island life, where he educates "Star" from the Bible and Shakespeare, is full of bright touches of wit and wisdom, as well as picturesque description.
"Captain January," is a clever, humorous characterization. The story altogether is all together delightful, offering as many attractions to older readers as to the younger ones. And the younger ones, with their unceasing cry of "more" pictures, has been generously considered by the artist, Frank T. Merrill with 26 illustrations.
