JUNIOR READING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26640, 10 December 1947, Page 2

JUNIOR READING

Literature

Adventure Down Under. By Claire Meillon. Angus and Robertson. 7/-. Ellice Of Ainslie. By Edna Roughley, Angus and Robertson. 7/-. Winks In Westland. Written and illustrated by Ruth Northcroft. Democracy Publishing Co. Peter Magpie. By Paul Lorck Eidem. Illustrated. John Murray. 7/6.

The Young Traveller In South Africa. By Anthony Delius. Phoenix House. 9/-. Illustrated.

The Spirit Of Jem. By P. H. Newby, John Lehmann. 9/6. Illustrated.

The experiences of a 15-year-old American lad in the outbacks of Australia are described in Claire Meillon’s Adventure Down Under. This book has already appeared in Australia as a radio serial. There is a good description of station life in New South Wales and there is some reai adventure when the young visitor and his new friends have an encounter with an escaped criminal. Ellice Of Ainslie is an Australian story for girls of about 15 years of age. It is a story of boarding school life and the trials that await a Queens-land-bred girl in her new environment. Holiday happenings play an important part in the tale, which is lively and readable. Winks is a delightful English girl who comes to know and to love the New Zealand bush. It is very different from the woods she knew at Home but she finds it is inhabited by fairies as well as by a very interesting natural life. Young readers will be attracted by the drawings in Winks In Westland and by the information which is incidentally conveyed. Peter Magpie is an admirable little children’s book, for anyone from the age of four to at least 10. The illustrations march with the text, an absolute essential with any children’s book and the misadventures of the naughty magpie who elected himself Chief Fixer for his locality, are amusingly told in entirely suitable language. This book is well worth a place on any Christmas list. The drawings are distinctly original and most entertaining. The seventh book in a series dealing with the adventures of a fortunate boy is The Young Traveller In South Africa, by Anthony Delius. Dick Wisley's father is a business man whose affairs take him on an extensive trip to the Union. His son goes with him for health reasons and enjoys an experience which would arouse envious delight in the heart of any lad. What he saw is described in a lively manner and there are illustrations and maps to assist the reader but perhaps there is rather too much information and too little fiction. This is, however, a book which should please more serious readers aged between 12 and 14 years. The Story Of Jem is something different in books for young readers in their early teens. It commences when a boy, a trouserless man in a bowler hat and a lively youth come together and discover that each has lost his memory. They take refuge in a hut in the country but soon find themselves involved in all sorts of strange and exciting happenings. It is evident that there is a conspiracy afoot and that the mysterious ship which visits the cove at night ' has something to do with it. The interest created by this unusual situation can hardly fail to absorb the reader until he discovers the surprising explanation.