Rag, Tag, and Bobtail. By Edith Farmiloe. Verses by Winifred
Parnell. (Grant Richards. 6s )—Miss Farmiloe evidently believes in the effectiveness of simple lines and dots. Sometimes she succeeds with them, but not, we are bound to say, always. The frontispiece, for instance, " Victoria Park," is presumably chosen as a gad specimen of her work. There may be a couple of score of children's figures in it. Some are good,—the boy in black who is running on the left, the boy in front who is shouting, and the two girls who are talking on the right. But the five children in a ring on the left are unequal. No. 4, " Flying from Justice," is decidedly good. So is No. 10, "The Jones's Swing." The verses run easily and well. "A Make-believe Margate" is particularly good, and here the pencil also is successful.— Verses for Grannie. Set down by S. M. Fox. Illustrated by Dorothea Drew. (T. Burleigh. 3s. 6d. net.)—Here we have a very different style, some very careful work, with pretty effects, pretty, we might say, rather than powerful. The frontispiece is a good piece of work, and the whole effect of the volume is distinctly pleasing.—Dot and the Kangaroo. By Ethel C. Pedley. (Same publisher. 3s. 6d. net )—This is a tale with a purpose, but the purpose is so good as to make this charac- teristic a merit rather than a defect. In fact, it lends itself to the literary and artistic qualities of the book. Miss Pedley dedicates her book to the "Children of Australia," whose sympathies she seeks to enlist for the " beautiful, amiable, and frolicsome creatures of their land"; in danger of extinction, she tells us, through carelessness or cruelty. Dot is lost in the bush, and comes into friendly relations with various inhabitants of it. —Funny Folks. By F. M. Howarth. (J. M. Dent and Co.)— A volume of humorous drawings of the farcical kind. Some of them are very good,—" The Pup's Revenge," for instance. The child has held up the puppy by the tail ; the puppy growing up, holds up the child by its clothes. " Mr. Goldrox and the Artist," telling how a "brainy business man" did not get rid of his artist rival, and Professor Stuffers's capture of a boa constrictor with an electric rabbit, are among the good things. But the volume is full of fun.
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