For the Kiddies

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 950, 25 October 1957, Page 20

For the Kiddies

A*® expefienced likrarian once wrote, "those who cannot read a good book for children with something of a child’s enjoyment should never criticise children’s' books." This came back to my mind while listening to a reviewer on Feminine Viewpoint disdainfully dismissing a reprint of a Mrs Molesworth classic which I, my own little girl and several of her friends have all delighted in. I felt that this particular critic had only that adult view of what a children’s book should be like, which Paul Haszard said is death to good children’s teading. Things are rather different in the 1YA Children’s Session. "Joan," who, until recently discussed books, was

‘not only deeply sensitive to the things that please youngsters, .but was able unobtrusively to. indicate the importance of standards in youthful teading. The same understanding of the. tender mind is displayed by the admirable "Douglas" who comments weekly upon the verses aspiring s send him. He is kindly, never devastating, yet he talks good sense about the rules and temper of poetry. And, above all, perhaps, he conveys a real enjoyment of those occasional pieces which exhibit the symptoms of poetty. And this sense of enjoyment, whether of Mrs Molesworth or of children’s verses, is sormethie vat which wa rotild HAe hawé +tAa

d much on the air.

J.C.

R.