25 DECEMBER 1920, Page 26

STORIES FOR BOYS.

Roscoe Makes Good, by Hylton Cleaver (Milford, 5s. net), is a lively school story ; Roscoe is described at the outset as a boy "whose animal spirits arc abnormally developed," and he has a rough time at his new school until he learns self-controL —Caught Out, by Kent Carr (Chambers, 6s. net), is another entertaining school story, though the hero perhaps carries renunciation to an extreme.—Adventures in Southern Seas by George Forbes (Harrap, os. net), is a tale not of the sixteenth century, as the title-page says, but of the seventeenth, and relates the curious adventures of a lad who sailed with Dick Hartog and first sighted the coast of Australia or New Holland. It is a readable book. Drake's Drum, by Draycot AL Dell (Jarrold, 7s. 6d. net), is a thrilling tale of the Spanish Main and of Spanish plotters in Elizabethan England.—Sea Scouts Afloat, by Frederick Harrison (S.P.C.K., 5s. net), is concerned with some sea scouts who were captured by a German cruiser and who escaped from her to a Pacific island. It is a novel and ingenious tale.—Tom and I on the Old Plantation, by Archibald Rutledge (Has-rap, 5s. net), is a set of stories of the woods of South Carolina, and of the wild creatures that inhabit them. It is a clever book.—Bright Ideas, by Herbert Strang (Milford, 55. net), is a whimsical "record of invention and misinvention," in six stories of excessively ingenious boys.— A Man for the Ages, by Irving Bacheller (Constable, 9s. net), is the story of Abraham Lincoln's life up to the time of his election to the Presidency. It is related by a boy whom Lincoln befriended, and gives an interesting picture of Lincoln's home and surroundings.—For boys who are wearied of fiction, has may mention Modern Travel, by Norman J. Davidson (Seek"' Service, 25s. net), which is a well-written and readable collection of travels in all parts of the world during the last forty years.