17 NOVEMBER 1888, Page 43

Joan's Adventures. By Alice Corkran. (Blackie and Son.)— This is

a most delightful fairy-story. It relates the adventures of the heroine, little Joan, on a voyage to the North Pole. It occurs in a dream, and this, with the charming style and easy prose narrative, makes its resemblance striking to Hans Andersen's, the best of all fairy-tales. Miss Corkran has the gift, which few possess, of telling a real fairy-story, a story which is fascinating alike to old and young. If "Down the Snow-Stairs" was good, Joan's Adventures is even better, for it shows evidence of genuine skill in writing, and also in those delicate touches which betray an intimate knowledge of children and all their ways.