A GUIDE FOR GIVERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 2

A GUIDE FOR GIVERS

Literature

Children’s Books This Christmas

The following article, by the author of “About Books for Children,”: published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, and which has been widely and favourably reviewed, is offered to assist parents, teachers and others in their seasonal quest for gift books.

For the Daily Times b;

Books for children may be chosen or I merely bought. The latter way is what shall be described as the “ grocery order technique,” an ad- 1 vanced specimen of which I saw in . the children’s department of a large bookshop last week. The assistant showed me a school prize order Which from memory ran as follows: “ Two Standard VI boys’ books, 2s; three Standard IV girls, Is; five assorted infants, 6d each.” There were no other clues as to what the books should be like, or what the children’s interests were. Happily this “ method ” of purchase is becoming rai'er, and more parents, friends, and relations make an effort these days to buy books for children with some discrimination. This Christmas the cream of children’s literature is available to those who like to ask for it, both the traditional stories which have been popular for 50 to 100 years past, and the contemporary classics with a chance of favour 50 to 100 years on—’’Alice in Wonderland ” and “Dr Dolittle,” “Robinson Crusoe” and “Swallows and Amazons.” It is worth taking a little trouble to find out which of the “grand reliables” is missing from a family bookcase and which are already there. (A child will accept a second copy of the “Arabian Nights” with no more enthusiasm than a bride accepting her third biscuit barrel.) One “Alice'in Wonderland” is a treasure. Two is plethora. There is an unrestricted choice of classics at the moment, ranging in price from half-a-crown to 255, in print, from the bold and black to the frankly microscopic. Oxford’s illustrated classics contain books like “Treasure Island” and “ Catriona ” with pictures in the romantic cloak and dagger tradition. Rowland Hilder’s illustrations for “Treasure Island” and Jack Mathew’s for “ Catriona ” are pictures which as frankly tell a story as those .Victorian masterpieces like “When did you last see your father? ” The difference is that Mathews and Hilder tell their stories with more verve, in the knowledge that they are illustrating boys’ books, “ indulging the pleasure of their own hearts,” T as Stevenson puts it, not preparing stuff for the Royal Academy. All this series is in a pleasant, large type. Ward Locks “ Prince Charming Colour Books (one regrets the title) are undistinguished in illustration, but they are Substantial, bulky books which appeal on that ground alone, even if one does not usually buy books by the P°und. It is a fact (one regrets the fact) that some children gauge the measure of a donor’s affection by the weight of the book they are given. Blackie s Famous Books are closely printed, but the price is reasonable and the range of titles wider than some of the other series I have mentioned. The Courtesy of Choosing

iy Dorothy Neal White.

voyage. “ First Tripper ” has a quiet realism and few flambuoyant details. It is most suited to a boy genuinely interested in the sea, for the book is precise and detailed in its description of that complicated mechanism, the merchant marine. However, if there are fathers who feel that oilburning ships are as dross compared to the vessels of the brave days of sail, alternatives are available. Armstrong Sperry, the author of the fine Polynesian story, “Boy Who Was Afraid,” has written more recently “All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud,” and C. Walter Hodges has illustrated “ Ship Aground,” by C. Fox Smith. Puffin Picture Books include a seaman’s special in the shape of “Famous Ships,” by Frank Bowen and Frank Mason.

Books bearing the gold seals of either the Carnegie or Newbury medals bear marks of real worth, for both these awards are carefully given. Junior Book Club recommendations, indicated by a band round the dust wrapper, are safe choices too. In contemporary adult literature to be the choice of one of the dozens of book societies means exactly nothing at all, but the Junior Book Club has not become a racket as yet and its insignia means something. Many of the reprinted juveniles now appearing in Penguin Story Books were originally Junior Book Club selections. This whole series is edited by Eleanor Graham, an author in her own right and a perceptive critic of children’s books. She has been catholic in her selection of titles. These include Robert Gibbing’s “Coconut Island”; Ninke van Hichtum’s “Afke’s Ten,” translated from the Dutch; a number of travel books for boys, and Eve Garnett’s “ Family from One End Street.”

For Younger Readers

When buying books for a family'of children it is not necessary to go out of one’s way to find books which fit each member of that family in glovelike fashion. In the best-regulated families, books like clothes get handed down, and a bookshelf makes a joint hunting ground for literates under the same roof. There are certain books which interest boys and girls of assorted ages between nine and 14, seeming neither too mature for the youngest, or too juvenile for the eldest of the span. "Wind in the Willows is a classical story of this type, but there are others different m spirit, but with the same range in appeal. Pamela Travers’ fantastic story, “ Mary Poppins,” and its sequels, make one instance. Miss Travers has a New Zealand connection for her first work appeared in the old Christchurch Sun. She writes a story compound of magic and realism in the way E. Nesbit used to do. Several of E. Nesbit s stories have found their way back into print this year, some with the old lllustra tionsjand some of the Bartable series with pictures by C. Walter Hodges. Kate Seredy’s “ Good Master, the story of children on a Hungarian farm, was 7 recently reprinted. Written and illustrated by the one woman who incidentally is writing m a foreign tongue when she writes English, “Good Master” has a- rare quality which makes it a contemporarydassic. There is no end to the fine cour tesies which can be observed in choosing books for children. Aunts of high degree and quality have been, known fo hunt out sequels to books given on previous Christmasses. Uncles of perception will ferret out the latest book by a favoured author. These may note Noel Streatfeild’s recent book. < party Frock,” with its greatest appeal to a girl interested in acting competitions and kindred sports, Kate Seredy’s newest offering, The Open Gate,” in which the Hungarian author gives her story an American setting: Geoffrey Trease’s historical novel “ Trumpets in the West , Arthur (“Swallows and Amazons”) Ransomes 1947 book is called equivocally Great Northern? ” Katherine Hull and Pamela JVhitlock, the two English schoolgirls who were so inspired by Ransome that they began to write children’s novels in the back of their school exercise books when they might have been studying for examinations, have now published a fourth story. “Crowns.” To quote the blurb, ‘this book is about four ordinary, quite nice, quite nasty children.” Katherine Hull and Pamela Whitlock had their earlier books reviewed in the New Zealand School Journal this year, and they have quite a following. “Crowns” is a slight departure from their usual manner of writing. When a child marked out for a present has a marked hobby, noble men and women should make an effort to find the relevant book, stamp catalogues for stamp collectors, woodwork books for amateur carpenters. It may be necessary to leave the children’s department and explore the technical section of a library. Rte member, a specialist- child with a monomania is never put off by language difficulties in a book if he is genuinely interested in the subjects Children only put books down and say they are too hard when the topic of the book does not appeal.

For Girls and for Boys

A ballet season in a town creates a new generation of balletomanes. For these girls there is a range of books —Arnold Haskell’s one «xcursion into children’s literature, “ Felicity Dances ” (Nelson) and Noel Streatfeild’s “ Ballet Shoes.” “ Ballet to Remember,” by Edna and Felicity Deane (Collins), gives first ballet exercises in rhyming jingles. The book is illustrated with line drawings and photographs of a young ballet dancer going through her paces, so that it would be useful not only to a child who is learning dancing, but’ say to an isolated country child who might like to teach herself. Also recommended are Gladys Malvern’s “Dancing Star” (Collins), <«a life of Anna Pavlova, and “Junior No. 2,” the second issue of a new English periodical for young people, which includes a section on ballet. So much for the distaff side. Peter Dawlish’s “The First Tripper” contrasts strangely with those nineteenth century sea stories of murderous captains and salt in the wounds. The hero makes his first sea voyage as an apprentice on a modern cargocarrying motor ship, the Parkdale, and he has no experience of iron fist or marline spike. His captain is very much opposed to what is described as “old-time bucko” stuff, when seamen and apprentices alike were beaten into obedience.- This more humane rule brings forth new problems in discipline, and the account of the captain’s effort to create and maintain order is a mature little study in human relations. The incidents of the book arise out of the normal life of a normal

My impression after looking round all the shops is that good books for older children are in better supply than those for their younger brothers and sisters. I saw no large Babar books, no Marjorie Flack, no Petershams. On the credit side, however, Beatrix Potter is in good supply. Since Margaret Lane wrote her recent life of Beatrix Potter, Warners, the publishers of the Peter Rabbit series, have obviously made an effort to meet the renewed demand for these stories. Jemima Puddleduck, Mrs Tittlemouse, and the other exquisite masterpieces have been reprinted generously. Leslie Brooke’s Johnny Crow books seem to be missing, but one shop has a supply of the little nursery rhyme books. Other absentees are the cat stories of Clare Newbery, but one title. “Marshmallow,” a coney chronicle, is good propaganda for the thesis that no home ''is complete without a rabbit. Rosemary Hammond’s “ Gifted Bear ” and “When Percy Was Four” (Oxford) are the merest scraps of books, of a size to go in any envelope at Christmas. Both are tales of small animals whose concern with clean dresses, going for walks and picking flowers reflects the interests of the three and four-year-olds, who will listen to these storied and find them not too big even for a pinafore pocket. In writing at this length of children’s books, I do not mean to imply that a book is always an ideal present. There is no kindness in giving a solid, feet-on-the-ground child, all stuff and no nonsense, an exauisite -imaginative story like De la Mare’s “Three Royal Monkeys” when he’d rather have a football or a good expensive hammer of adult proportions. Occasionally a bookish adult will assume that all children are embryo readers, when this is barely the case. I knew a young person who dreaded each birthday because of the inevitable book from a certain relative, who quite understandably expected her to read the thing. The festival was blighted, There are many children much less susceptible to the charms of print than to the taste of chocolate or the clink of coins.