NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

NEW ZEALAND FOR THE \ OTHERS. The Maori. Past and Present. By T. E. Donne, C.M.G. Seeley Service and 00. Rod Fishing In New Zealand Waters. By T. E. Donne, C.M.G. Seeley Sorvice and Co. These aro two excellent books for the purpose for which they are intended—which does not, however, especially include the education of New Zealanders. Mr Donne of course knows most of the things that are to be known about the Maoris (from the outside) and tells them rather more entertainingly than some of our greatest authorities'have done. He is also well supplied with fishing facts and fancies, and especially, bv the courtesy of the Tourist Department, with hshing photographs. But it is a little disconcerting to find him opening lire on the Maori with a paragraph like this: "Ethnogenic authorities class the 'Maori' New Zealnndter as of Malayan extraction, and the acceptance of this classihcation indicates that his progenitors were a hardv race, strongly imbued with the spirit 'of adventurous wanderlust, which impelled them to exercise their innate adaptive radiation in seeking new places of habitation, and thereby largely helping to people the vast.area of Oceania." Oddly enough Mr Donne claims on the next page that he has "dealt with his subject in a somewhat light vein," and more oddly still no actually (in places) has done so, but lightness is not exactly what he would himself call his "forte." It must be said also of his fishing book that it contains too many "propitious days, "prodigious" catches, ".similar dimensions," and verses obviously written bv Mr Donne himself, and that the author's own catches, thrills, and adventures, and disappointments conic too often and too readily.to his pen. The excuse no doubt is that Mi Donne's experience has extended from fishing for minnows and grayling to spearing the slimy eel, angling for the wilv trout throughout M-w Zealand, taking the salmon in Canada, the United States, and Scotland, hooking great sharks in the Pacific and assisting at the harpooning and spearing of leviathan whales," and that he feels entitled to get as much of that experience (and a little more) as ho can iustifiably range under his restricted title. But his faults of stylo and taste of course leave his facts untouched, and—the important considerationleave the overseas fisherman without excuse if he either stays away from New Zealand or comes here expecting what does not exist. (Both hooks throueh Whitcombc and Tombs.) A DISCOVERY. The Garden: Stories for Children. By Lunky Lee. Illustrated oy Robtn Shced and Ward, London.

"Whoever "Lunky Lee" is, he (or she) was once a child and possessed of on active devil. However he got rid of the devil, he was helped by books. And wherever he is to-day, and however employed, he enjoys tho friendship of Hilaire Belloc. But although these are.three very unusual reasons for the surprising quality of this book, it even then requires some further accounting for. And the only explanation possible is that Lunky Lee must have been born and educated on one side of the world and topped off on the other side, must have inherited humour and acquired wisdom and tolerance, and escaped paying the price in loss of zest. He writes sometimes of fairyland, and sometimes of the regions a year or two nearer to grownups, but does it all with such ease and "go" that he is never once tedious or mawkish, even when, as ho always is, lie is quite deliberately purposeful. Finally, it would never be suspected, though it actually is the truth, that the book is made up of reprints from a religious weekly—Bishop deary's "Month."

(Through Whitcombe and Tombs.) A CHILD AND A PROFESSOR. Cinders. By Fred Wright and Margot Folliott. Cornstalk Publishing Company. Cinders was a tweeney in a London boardinghousc. Probably her name was a corruption of "Cinderella," whom she resembled in every way except that she had no wicked sisters. However, her mistress mado up for that doubtful loss by bullying her in the good old style, and since Cinderellas always have rescuers, we are introduced to a gallant professor of entomology, a absent-mind-ed old man who lived in the some house. By a freakish chance ho inherited an elaborate hotel at Nice and when this point has been reached the stage is set for Cinders's emancipation, the story of whch makes pleasantly absurd reading.

WHEN BARONS WERE BOLD. The Outlaw of Tom. By Edgar Bice Burroughs. Methuen. In the days when his barons were giving him a good deal of trouble, Henry 111. deeply insulted his French master of fence. In revenge, the old man, who was the greatest swordsman of his time, stole the King's three-year-old son Richard, and brought him up to believe himself French and to hate anything English. He taught him to be as great a swordsman as himself, and when he was old enougn made him an outlaw and leader of a band like another Robin Hood—which was after all not quite so remarkable as the conduct of Mr Burroughs in serving up such a story for grown men and women. FOR CHRISTMAS. * The Little Brown House. By the Author of "The Butterfly Man." Cornstalk Publishing Company. Every year this firm makes a point of publishing a small booklet specially suitable for a Christmas gift. This book, the latest addition to their 2s 6d library, consists of two short stories by tho popular American writer Marie Conway Oemler, full of Christmas sentiment, and overflowing with the emotion Americans are supposed to appreciate.