is out-of-date now, and the story, a character sketch of a maddening bore in the next hospital bed, is a bore itself. Of the stories which stand out, the best is ‘A kind of Madness’ by Philip Mincher. It deals with the dilemma of a traffic cop—if he chases the speeding car, will he encourage it to go faster, and in the dangerous condition of the road, will he be responsible for the inevitable accident. If he lets it go by, might he not as well have another job. The topic is one which will affect and interest young people, the action is exciting, the point of view unusual, and the writing excellent—which will appeal to teachers. ‘Mark of the Rimu’ by O. E. Middleton is the only ‘fantastic’ story, and as such stands out. It is a slight eerie tale in the best fantasy tradition, with a chill at the end. Both Witi Ihimaera and Arapera Blank deal specifically with the problem of a Maori coping with two cultures, Ihimaera in a story that is funny on the surface, Arapera Blank in a bitter, forceful postscript to a story called ‘One Two Three Four Five’. It is a pity the whole story could not have been used. Oddly enough in this urban age, almost all the stories have rural settings. Mason Durie, Atihana Johns, Rowley Habib (with two stories about the same family giving a sense of continuity where most of the stories are very short), Phillip Wilson, Barry Mitcalfe and Hone Tuwhare all keep to country areas. Fiona Kidman, with a rural upbringing, sets her stories in the town. ‘On the Train’, first published here, is the thoughts of a ‘marginal’ mentally defective young man which makes its point effectively. Albert Wendt sets one of his stories, the tri-racial ‘Nazis? What is Nazis?’ in a city dump and the other in Samoa, a wide range of subject and of feeling. J. Edward Brown also chooses the Islands for an amusing anecdote. Finally, Barry Emslie provides a school story which will crystallise the feelings of many high school students towards the system. For teachers, there is a list of questions for discussion and research at the end. There is material for much interesting work here, which will ensure that the book is used in the senior forms it is designed for, where the obligation of studying books for exams only is all-powerful. I have a few quibbles about the standard of some of the writing—while I prefer idiomatic language with its concomitant grammatical errors in dialogue, I am less enthusiastic about the same errors in narrative unless required by dialect. This is not to say that I have any objections to the strength of the language, which Bernard Gadd feels obliged to justify in his introduction. All in all, this is an extremely good volume. I feel confident of its success in schools and wish that its appearance did not militate against its being bought by the community at large—it has unfortunately cover photographs on a base shade of a most unappealing yellow. However, it is well presented, and though a paper-back, sturdily bound. I look forward to its companion volume of short stories for juniors, due later this year.

SONS FOR THE RETURN HOME by Albert Wendt Longman Paul, $3.95 reviewed by Paul Katene In every respect this book is an achievement. It is about racialism—its conflicts within a society where there is entrenchment to maintain separateness—to preserve an inimitable way of life, allowing no room for outward growth, no compromise for dilution, enlargement or cross-pollenation. Wendt is concerned with these people—these racialists; he knows them—he was one of them. They are the hard liners, sheltering behind their pretentions, their vanities, their obsequious smiles; surveying all from their ivory towers—looking but not seeing; supported by their institutions, their taboos, their preciousness. Thankfully these do not constitute our total society. The point is nonetheless taken. Somewhere in every race are found the same prejudices, the same justifications, the same hypocrisies, the same vanities. They just differ in intensity between the groups. He sadly observes that animosities flare easily between the ethnic groups that crowd the bottom of the socio-economic ladder,