Term-Time and Holidays

IT is tempting, because so easy, to be scornful of the spate of very unlikely school and holiday story books that pour out

from the publishers at this time of year. Yet why should we attempt to dam the tide ? It has its functions, since all little girls who are prepared to believe in adventure wallow in it. Let us be thankful for the imaginative authors who have spared us boring records, of real school routine or real holiday life, even though we do weary of their highfalutin' sentiments, and embarrassing statements on esprit de corps and honour. Let us suppose that we are young enough to desire a Paradise, whose harpists are members of the School Orchestra—what will our author guides allow us to find there ?

We shall, to begin with, see quite a lot of princesses. Miss Angela Brazil introduces us to rather a nice one, who is so

excited when she bectnnes a schoolgirl that she compiles a dictionary of slang—" a little language to speak to girls but not to governesses." There is movement, action, and liveli- ness in her book, St. Catherine's College (Blackie. 6s.), and by far the best thing in it is a really amusing description of a performance of Hamlet in modern language. H.R.H. Miss Johnson (Oxford University Press, 5s.), by Miss Margaret

Baines-Reed also has a royal heroine, who, after various hair- raising adventures- in Switzerland, goes as paying guest to

a family in Ireland, where she is very nearly captured by political agents. This tale of the holidays outrivals most of the school books for excitement.

In The Runaway Princess (Ward, Lock. 4s.) Miss Isabel Peacock tells the story of a little girl who is captured by a Maori chief, and who leads the life of a princess for some years. The story is quite well and dramatically written. The same cannot be said of Miss Bessie Marchant's book, The Bannister Twins (Nelson. 5s.), in which she introduces us to some exasperatingly efficient children, and describes their rescue of a princess who was not a princess. The above books may be expected to appeal to girls who are between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and now we come to the school stories for rather younger children. Most of the

characters in these are either impossibly riotous or most

unnaturally conscientious. The best comment possible on Miss May Baldwin's High Jinks at the Priory School (Chambers.

3s. 6d.) is made by one of the heroines, a new girl, who asks, " Is this a school for lunatics ? Is it a reformatory ? " Snobbery is the chief characteristic of this juvenile Bedlam.

There is snobbery, too, in Miss Vane Post's book, Plantagenet Anne (Black. 2s. 6d.). The heroine came of a family " whose veins throbbed with the blue blood of turbulent kings,"and who " bitterly resented interference from those of a lesser breed."

The titles of Miss E. Brent-Dyer's The Rivals of the Chalet School (Chambers. 3s. 6d.), Miss E. M. Channon's Her Second

Chance (Nisbet. 3s. 6d.), and Miss Josephine Elder's Evelyn Finds Herself (Oxford University Press. 5s.), all give some indications of their themes. The last is a good story of the levelling up process that is part of real school life. All these stories are quite readable. The Slow Girl at St. Jane's (Oxford University Press. 2s. 6d.), by Miss Marjory Damon, is unlikely but very likeable. It tells of a little girl who changes place with her school-girl twin, and is much more amusing than most of its companions.

This year there are a good many books which are very nearly novels. The Smiths of Silver Lane (Nelson. Os.) is un- doubtedly the best of these. In it Miss Ethel Talbot writes of a family of girls who live by themselves in a large house. They are poor, proud and ridiculous, and their next-door neighbour, a fat motherly woman, who longs to be kind, and who is considered impertinent is arimst amusing diameter. The boOkcleserves a big success. The Abbey Girls at Home (Collins..Os.) is a sequel to some of Miss Elsie Oxenham's school books. The characters are not, as is usual in this semi- schoolgirl type of fiction, labelled with a few descriptive senteriees ; they really do speak for themselves, and they speak naturally, There is very little plot but no trace of dulness in this tale of household of girls and children. a

Ranger JO '(Pearson: 'Ss. 6d.), by Miss Ethel Talbot, and K. Blake's. Way-(Aiiiifefon. 5s.), by Miis Margaret Ward,

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