Personally I should have liked to see far more included on Titokowaru; as it is his deeds are scattered throughout the book. He fought under Makatea in the victory over the Waikato at Waimate, and his mana was later increased by his success against the Pakehas, which forced the intruders to abandon the entire district north of the Patea river. He also supported Te Whiti at Parihaka, though this fact is not mentioned here. Titokowaru's whole life and philosophy, and his indomitable spirit, is expressed in his saying quoted in this book: ‘E kore ahau e mate; kaore ahau e mate. Ka mate ano te mate, ka ora ano ahau.’ ‘I shall not die; I shall not die. When death itself shall be dead, I shall be alive.’

Rata by Anne Holden Whitcombe and Tombs, 16s reviewed by Amy Mihi Hill This book, published with the aid of the New Zealand Literary Fund, is about a half-caste child, Rata, who is an orphan. Since her mother died Rata has lived in a succession of ‘foster’ homes, and we find her undergoing life with the well-meaning but rather dull Miss Carter. Rata finally finds this frugal existence impossible, and she decides that she will go back to the pa where her mother grew up. Surely someone there will love her and give her some fun. For Rata is a child, and just like any other child, she wants and needs love. So off she runs and finds a sort of happiness amongst her Maori people. However after a time she realises that she does not belong to the pa, and that she must go back to the realistic world of Miss Carter.

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I understand that she goes back. Why, I don't know, because there is certainly nothing in the book which shows that she should. (If I were Rata, I'd have been tempted to stay at the pa.) Mrs Holden has written a book about a child who is neither one thing nor the other …. like myself she is neither Maori nor Pakeha. Many Pakehas today speak with a sort of envy about how fortunate Maoris are to belong to something; have something to go back to, to hold on to—and yet in the same breath they decry the fact that Maoris are not taking their rightful place in the community. The rather rootless existence of many Maoris today becomes an increasing social problem. If Rata had not gone back to the ‘right’ world of Miss Carter, perhaps she would have had such an existence. I did not particularly like ‘Rata’, and it is difficult to say why. I do not know whether it is an adult children's book, or a childish adult's book. I believe almost every person has at least one book in them — perhaps this was Mrs Holden's. I hope not, for I feel that amongst all the well-meaning words written about Rata the child, there is promise of a better book, perhaps written about something or someone other than Maoris.

Doctor Smith by G. Kemble Welch Blackwood and Janet Paul, 27s 6d This is a biography of the famous Dr G. M. Smith, Hokianga's ‘King of the North’, who gave up a promising career as a surgeon to practice for 34 years in isolated Rawene. He was a significant figure in the development of social security in medicine, and under him Rawene medical services became for many people an ideal of the way social security care should develop. A humane and gifted man, he could also be fiercely individualistic and intolerant of opposition. Dr Kemble Welch's account of his life has both sympathy and detachment, and is written with such lively intelligence that even those with no knowledge of his subject will enjoy this portrait of an extraordinary individual and the times in which he lived. M.O.