6 DECEMBER 1930, Page 37

The Joyful Clap of the Book Trap

A CHRISTMAS book is not so much a book as a gift, a thing which should promise pleasure, loudly, as the pages are turned. Christmas is a day when children should be "given in to," and have so far as may be what they think they will like, If there is something clap-trap about the adventures, the Popular science, the school-room detective tales, the infantile farce, and the pretty pictures, which abound in volumes "got up for Christmas," the adult critic should not speak out of his turn. Listen to the children chattering about them ! See how the books " catch on " before you criticize.

In many of the annuals we are about to notice there is more than all this, there is instruction, technical and otherwise, and in the former case pictorial demonstration of the clearest kind. In several, an eager, wholesome air of daring and industry blows from cover to cover, and may act as a moral tonic, But we are not writing criticism, we are setting up a signpost to help a purchaser.

To begin with the expensive books suitable for big tiffs and girls, a giver who thinks of buying The Boys' Own Annual (Religious Tract Society, I2s. ad.) should open the book, and he will fad immediately inside the cover what Mr. Bald- win, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Garvin, and Lord Meath have to say in praise of The Boys' Own Paper, of which this is a bound-up year. Let him then dip into its pages and sec the delight its possession will give to a boy interested, for Instance, in wireless; or keen on the- details of colonial-life.

Whe_Scout Annual (Pearson, 10s. ad.) makes a fine present judged by size ! It numbers over a thousand pages. The amount of reading it contains would last- an average boy for months, and longer if he stopped to carry out one quarter of the practical suggestions for making useful " gadgets " or amusing games. Cubs are catered for as well as Scouts.

The Girls' Own Annual (Religious Tract Society, 12s.) is full of illustrations large and small, sentimental scenes enhancing the delights of love stories, charming photographs of places, almost too many of royalties, beauties and eelebrities, besides

representations of woodwork, lacquer and I bler handi- crafts within the capacities of ordinary fingers and purses. Our Girls' Annual (Religious Tract Society, 7s. ad.) is a little cheaper, and has almost as good an appearance. It, too, abounds in articles containing clear and well-illustrated instruction about crafts, not ignoring cookery, or the homely arts of mending and " doing up." As a specially excellent feature we notice a recurrent page of easy French, entitled " Sourires." The little anecdotes to be smiled at are well chosen. The enjoyment of the joke is calculated to whet a youthful appetite for language.

For young boys of "Prep." School age Collins' Air ('raft Annual (Collins' Clear Type Press, Is.), and Collins' Railway Annual (same publisher, same price) offer suitable reading. The Zoo and Animal Annual (same publisher, same price) is suitable for either girl or boy, and would amuse and enter- tain any animal lover of any age. A delightful book !

Fairy stories are little read now, but children have not changed. They still want the element of the impossible in stories—but that impossible must take the form of adventure in the ordinary world, not in Fairyland. Young boys who would despise Oberon and Titania might enjoy Blackie's Boys' Annual (Mackie, Is.). Blackie's Children's Annual (also 5s.) is a charming book for children up to eight or nine years old. A story in it about a " mechanical governess " would be difficult to read aloud for laughing. This Robot instructress has stops in her back by whirl, her conduct may be regulated. The severest stop is encircled by the legend, " A smack in time saves nine." Her works go wrong and she attacks UM authorities.

Blackie's Girls' Annual (Blackie, Is.) contains, among very many other pleasant items, a little play for six characters, all girls, scene a railway station—the sort of thing often required to vary a Christmas party. The Oxford Annual for Children (Oxford University Press, fis.) would prove, we are sure, very attractive to young children-- from five to nine, brought up to look and listen with something rather less primitive than the natural instinct to " bear reading " and stare at a recognizable representation of -familiar objects, The Oxford Annual for Tiny Tots (Oxford University Press, 3s. 6d.) is a pretty production and brings our list to an end.