[Gutenberg 45588] • Near the Top of the World: Stories of Norway, Sweden & Denmark

Foreword

This book is intended to encourage a friendly attitude towards people of other lands. Fast steamers, airplanes, and the radio have made the people of all lands neighbors, and American boys and girls must become better acquainted with their neighbors across the seas if they are to understand and appreciate them. Through material such as is given in Near the Top of the World, children may come to know interesting and likable people of another country, and to regard them as people like themselves, not as queer or amusing.

The author traveled widely in Scandinavia for the purpose of gathering material. She watched the people, especially the children, at work and play. She visited homes, schools, libraries, farms, saeters, Lapp settlements. She talked with teachers, librarians, and other citizens of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they assisted her generously in seeing and interpreting life in their lands.

The pictures which illustrate the stories are photographs, some of them taken by the author. For other pictures she is grateful to the American-Swedish News Exchange, New York, the Norwegian Government Railway, New York, and the Danish Government Railway, New York.

The vocabulary is simple and although the book was written for no specific grade, the sentence structure has been adapted to third grade reading. The stories were tested in third grade classrooms and revised to remove any difficulties that were encountered. The vocabulary was checked with the Gates Word List and the Thorndike Word List with the following results: 74 per cent of the words in the random sampling fall in the Gates 1500 list; 84 per cent in Thorndike’s first 2000 list, 90 per cent in Thorndike’s first 3000 list, and 94 per cent in Thorndike’s first 5000 list. Very few unusual words have been used.

CONTENTS.

Near the Top of the World

Greeting a Strange Sun

On the Seas of the Far North

Fishing Islands

The Giants of the North Lands

In the Land of Evergreen Trees

How the Mountain Was Clothed

Reindeer Land

Through Farm Lands of Norway

In the High Pastures

On the Flat Farm Lands of Denmark

A Teller of Tales

A City in the Midst of Seven Mountains

In a City Built on Islands

The Children of the North Celebrate

Winter Sports in the North Land

At School in the Far North

In an Open-Air Museum

A Tale of a Wandering Story-teller

Buried Treasures of the Old Sea Kings

Tales of the Old Sea Kings

Ivar, a Viking Boy

Planting the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth

Books to Read

Illustrations

The top of the world

Map of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark

How the sun seems to move around the horizon

This tree is farther north than any other tree in the world

The North Cape and the midnight sun

Lars and Kari on the deck of the ship

Birds frightened by the boat

Fish hung on poles to dry

The fishing boat had a good catch

Fredrik

Walking on a glacier

A Norwegian Fjord

Evergreen trees in winter

Men with poles keep the logs moving

Lapps traveling with reindeer

A Lapp hut

Children in a Lapp school

A two-wheeled buggy or cariole

A fence loaded with grass

A Norwegian farm

Lonely little huts in the mountains

A Norwegian saeter

Matti, Ingrid, and Ole

A farmhouse with a thatched roof

A Danish egg

An old town in Denmark

A co-operative dairy farm

The birthplace of Hans Andersen

Paper cutting done by Hans Andersen

Dolls dressed like the characters in Andersen’s stories

Statue of Hans Christian Andersen

The city