ANNUALS.
THAT indefatigable purveyor of ample fare for young people, the Religious Tract Society, has sent us its usual hundred- weight or so of Annuals. How far these volumes follow a taste or how far they set it we cannot say, but it is a healthy one, and we are glad to think that they are popular. The Boy's Own Annual (R.T.S., 8s.) is evidently carried on by its new editor on lines closely similar to those laid down by its founder, Mr. Hutchison, during his long regime. He said with disappointment that the board school boy could not appreciate good literature. He certainly tried to set a good standard for the readers of the Boy's Own Paper. In him boys have lost a good friend during this year. Many older
people who knew little of his philanthropic and religious work (for deep-sea fishermen, for instance) must be grateful to the man who first introduced them, as boys, to such writers as Kingston, Ballantyne, Henty, Talbot Baines Reed, and others. The large staff of contributors keep up the standard to-day. As usual the fare is judiciously mixed ; fact and fiction, grave and gay, are all there. The stories are of school life and of adventure at home and abroad. Of instructive articles those on natural history are perhaps the most prominent. The black-and-white illustrations are plentiful, and the coloured plates, if a little loud in tone, are at any rate sumptuous.-The companion volume, The Girl's Own Annual, at the same price, will make an equally strong appeaL Besides the fiction and plentiful advice upon dress and needlework there are articles on out- door work, and even one that tells its readers some simpler• facts about engineering, which may well be useful when one sees the growing number of young women who somehow or other get leave to drive motor-cars. There is also sensible advice on such matters as " Colonial Openings for Educated Women" and "The Women who Encourage Anarchy."-The Sunday at Home (7s. 6d.) is for the general reader, though more particularly for the young. It again mingles fiction with serious matter. The articles have for the most part a religious o• ecclesiastical bent, but are catholic in their determination to show no favour• to one denomination above another. Photo- graphy supplies some of the illustrations.-There is also the pair of volumes, The Empire Annuals for Boys and for Girls (3s. 6d. each). They contain stories which should awake interest in various parts of the Empire, and serious articles besides. Balloons ar•e prominent in the boys' volume, and aviation is represented even in the girls'. They are fully illustrated.
Mr. Herbert Strang is an inexhaustible writer for boys. His Annual (Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton, 5s. net) is full of wholesome stuff for them : fiction dealing with life at school and abroad, articles on sport, the Navy, hydroplanes, and such distant subjects of interest as the Panama Canal and the Monastery of Meteoron. It is copiously illustrated.-Young England (The Pilgrim Press, 58.) is another volume on the same lines, though providing a larger proportion of fiction ; stamps, too, are a prominent subject.-The Girls' Budget (T. Nelson and Sons, 3s. 6d.) is a younger annual of short stories by Mrs. Walford and others, illustrated with pleasant colour plates. Most are of modern life, though we recognize Mr. W. E. Sparkes's version of "Sigurd and Gudrun," which the publishers included last year in their." World's Romances."
The Wonder Book (Ward, Lock and Co.; 3s. 61) is an excellent medley of interesting short stories, merry jingling rhymes, and plenty of coloured and black-and-white pictures. -The Child's Own Magazine, published by the Sunday School Union at ls., contains a serial story, Sunday evening talks, verses, and short stories, besides many black-and-white illustr•ations.-The Rosebud Annual (J. Clarke and Co. ; 3s.) and The Empire Annual (Religious Tract Society; 3s. 6d.) are for rather younger children than the two first mentioned.
Mrs. Strang's Annual for Children (Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton; 3s. 6d. net) is an attractive and prettily illustrated book.
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