Last things first: Yes—books did cost quite a lot more in Village times than they do now, especially compared to how much money people could earn. That meant that books were less common, and more precious. In the 1830s, a girl or boy who had been given a book (perhaps as a New Year's present) would take very good care of it, and would expect to read it and re-read it many times.

At the Village's Research Library, we have a large collection of children's book that were printed before 1860—librarians call them "juvenile literature." Looking through this collection will give you a few surprises. First, most children's books were not funny. Many were written by adults who believed that the purpose of juvenile literature was to teach children how to behave. So quite a few of these books have stories about misbehaving boys and girls who disobeyed their parents or teachers and "came to a bad end." Others are about particularly good youngsters who follow all the rules, never say a cross word, do all their chores at home, and grow up to be happy and successful. (I personally find the stories about bad kids more interesting; the stories about super-good ones tend to be a little boring!)

Other stories back then were more religious in nature and encouraged children to spend more time reading the Bible, praying, and going to church. Since the Bible was the most common book of all, most children would have known quite a few Bible stories, especially the most exciting and interesting stories in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Quite a few kids also read works of grown-up history or literature. Some read about the American Revolution or ancient Greece and Rome; others read novels by popular authors of the time, like Sir Walter Scott or James Fennimore Cooper.

There were also books of sports and games for both boys and girls, with directions for indoor games, rules for outdoor games (like base ball), and instructions on how to make kites, etc. The Village Research Library also has quite a few picture books that were fun to read back then—and are still fun today. One of my favorites is Dame Trot and Her Comical Cat; the cat is really good at getting into trouble and winds up making friends with mice the way Garfield, the comic strip cat, does today.

Another one I like is called the Metamorphoscope, with hand-colored illustrations whose top and bottom halves move up and down on paper hinges on every page, so that you can create four different pictures on each page. Long before the days of movies or TV cartoons, books like this gave kids a chance to put pictures in motion.

Finally, there were some very small and not very expensive kid's books called "toy books." They were sometimes short versions of nursery rhymes, or told short stories about children having adventures or escaping perils. They often had a few small illustrations and cost 5 or 10 cents, meaning that a young person might have been able to save up enough on his or her own to buy one.

So, what does it all add up to? Early New England kids did not have the huge range of reading and entertainment that you are used to today. Most of the reading aimed their way was pretty serious. But that's not to say that they didn't have fun—they just had to work a little harder to find it.