HAPPY DAYS
OLD HERBACEOUS, by Reginald Arkell; illustrations by John Minton; Michael Pb gx Eng§lish price, 6. UNE BOY, by Edwin Way Teale; illustra- | by Cecil W. Bacon; Robert, Hale. | English price, 12/6. ; EGINALD ARKELL is a true coun-| tryman and plant lover, as anyone} who reads just a-few sentences of this) book can tell. Quite obviously he has| dug and hoed and weeded and cut grass. over and over again, and has shared the disappointments and the rewards | of all gardeners. But he needed some | extra quality, something more than} first-hand knowledge and experience to! Help him to write this very sympathetic | and appreciative life of an old man who | began as a gardener’s boy and ended as | (continued on page 15) ,
Book Reviews
(continued from page 13) an honoured retired head-gardéner with his own cottage and his memories. I am not sure what that extra quality is, but perhaps it is human kindness; it makes his book the kind>to appeal to anyone growing old, especially a gardener. Old Herbaceous_ in a short story of a long and happy. ‘life; Dune Boy is a short reminiscence of the long and happy boyhood of, naturalist who spent his school holid sin bliss with his grandparents on- ‘shores of Lake Michigan. His life was divided into a kind of mental Arctic night and day, Edwin Teale says: the night was all the time when he crawled about at school in the city-the day was vacation time among the dunes, with Gramp, who always promised rewards of any silver dollars he found rollin’ uphill, and Gram who said "we must ke@p evil-doers from doing evil; it isn’t enough just to forgive them the evil they do." He helped on the farm and observed the wild life and collected things-the story of his collection of mouse-pelts and his attempt" to market them is wildly funny-and trained himself sdlemnly in such qualities as persisten¢e: he tangléd a reel of silk and then spent hours and hours trying to unravel the tang] e, giving up only when he had proved to his own: satisfaction that he really had. os desirable quality. These two books, both illustrated: with line drawings, are recommended for those with a leaning towards plant-life, |
whether cultivated or wild.
J.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 13
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378HAPPY DAYS New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 654, 18 January 1952, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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