Publisher's Synopsis
About the book: Don't judge a book by its cover, read it for yourself. Like all other books so far, 'Feel by heart---Not by reason' contains elements of fantasy---the free play of creative imagination in response to psychological need. Why? This is because the elements of myth work deeply, and are powerful tools. Myth is not entertainment, but rather the crystallization of experience and far from being escapist literature, fantasy is an intensification of reality. A house without children's books is like a room without windows.By now it is a truism to say that fantasy of 'Feel by heart' must be anchored by a convincing and realistic background. Ideally, fantasy and reality should reach the same level of intensity and maturity. Fantasy of 'Feel by heart' will not lose its potential power. As child holds the nation, so the children's story is to a child. Amidst various classes of animals in animal kingdom, there is a mutual support, mutual aid and mutual defence. And children like reading animal stories of animal kingdom, enjoying, at the same time, the development of their habits and characters, together with the greatest amount of enjoyment of life. The language reads so well that a child, hearing it once or twice, will be able to recite whole passages delightedly off by heart.The characters are few and strongly contrasted, and every story moves through tragedy and danger to a dramatic conclusion. The story of a wild creature is often the history not only of an individual but also of an individual-in-society. The tone is always strictly child-centred and often plays with children. During the last war, some effort was made to bring in adult politics (I am Herr Hitler; I would become the emperor of the world. You are the cowboy; you would become the emperor of the cows). Those days are gone today. Violence today gives children the wrong ideas about physical laws.It is not surprising that many children, full of their own fantasies and curiosity about what adults do when they are behind closed doors and by themselves, should feel a mixture of interest and amused contempt.To concoct a successful children's story, take an island and boats and pet animals, an eccentric indulgent father and several comic children, mixed together with cheerfulness, sunshine, sentimentality and carefree young love. This concoction is pleasant and lively, and should provide the child with plenty to laugh at, enough excitement to him interested, and the occasional hint of near-tragedy and disappointment by way of contrast.Amusing it certainly is, and charming and wholesome, but with nothing to disturb the mind or prick the imagination. Every successful children's story looks as though every now and then there can be something about a child, the voice, the manner of speaking, the innate air of authority, that holds the listener, almost no matter what is said.Children ought to read, ought to be good to animals and the poor; children ought to know about the flowers, the stars; ought to be obedient and industrious, brave and thrifty. Children should keep in mind that the most difficult thing in life is to know yourself. When the green baize door fell away in life---the one that kept apart the separate world of the child----another door fell down in fiction too. Not quickly, to be sure: children's stories tend to lag about fifty years behind their time. A child today and the same child a few months later may be strangers. And my children's story 'Feel by heart' depending on action and plot which shows a change of age introduces a note which greatly disturbs the illusion. Children, who live in the town and long for the country, children who wish they had exciting pets, will romp through this story. It is not a book to treasure but it is very refreshing. And there is something about smallness that seems to attract children only, so the adventures of animals are likely to be followed to the happy-ever-after end.There can