"Come Unto These Yellow Sands." By Margaret L. Woods. Illustrated
by J. Hancock. (John Lane. 6s. net.)—This is a book about children and fairies to be read by parents. In it Mrs. Woods shows us to what sad straits want of imagina- tion may lead a kind father, and how goblins and fairies can still work their spells, even in a seaside villa. So sure is her touch, and so intimate her knowledge of fairyland, not to speak of her sympathetic insight into the hearts of human beings, that her characters, from the horrid Jaw-Bobbo to the painstaking Lady Craistor, are real and interesting. As the story develops we can see the emphatic Professor of Science, who begins by banishing fairies and toy soldiers, and such-like "cruel" and "unreal" things, from his boy's life, being gradually driven by the creatures of the spirit into understanding his little son's real needs, and we leave him converted to the know- ledge that a child cannot thrive on mental bread alone, without the honeydew and "milk of paradise." Of the coloured illus- trations, we will only say that they are the product of that pro- cess which throws a cloak of monotonously bright colours over work which in itself is attractive, and full of pretty, fanciful details.
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