at time and found
small children were her specialty. She says:

"Working with them, and giving out constantly as one must with small
children, was like casting bread upon waters. It came back to me, what I
was giving them, not after many days but at once; their appreciation,
their spontaneous sympathy, their love gave to me something I could get
nowhere else, and it was enriching. I felt then, as I still feel, that
children give us the best things the world has to offer, and my effort has
been to make some return. Twice during the crises in my married life I
went back to the schoolroom for comfort. Once after the death of one of my
own children, when I had no others left, and again when my husband went to
the battle-fields of France.

"I have written with the same experience as I taught. My first successes
were with adult fiction. I have had something like six hundred short
stories published by syndicates, and magazine articles have appeared from
time to time, but gradually I realised that I wanted children for my
audience. Several years ago I published _Cloud Boat Stories_. Later _The
Wonderful Land of Up_. A syndicate editor saw these books and asked me to
start a children's department for the five hundred papers he served. That
was the beginning of the 'Twins.' Nancy and Nick were born two years ago.
They still visit their little friends every day in the columns of many
newspapers. What a vast audience I have! A million children! No wonder one
wishes to do his best.

"I have two children of my own. They are my critics. What they do not
like, I do not write. We all love the out-of-doors and to us a bird or a
little wild animal is a fairy."

But when I try to say something about the _Nancy and Nick_ series I find
it has all been said for me (and said so much better!) by that
accomplished bookseller, Candace T. Stevenson:

"I have just finished all of the books by Olive Roberts Barton. They are
truly spontaneous and delightful. In fact, they have carried my small
group of children listeners and myself along as breathlessly as if they
were Alice in Wonderland or Davy and the Goblin. They are delightful
nonsense with exactly the right degree of an undercurrent of ideas which
they can make use of in their business of everyday living. Children love
morals which are done as skilfully as the chapter on Examinations in
Helter Skelter Land, and Sammy Jones, the Topsy Turvy Boy in Topsy Turvy
Land, and I found my group not