CHILDREN'S BOOKS.*
The Fairies and the Christmas Child is a charmingly written story about a boy who, because be was born on Christmas Day, had the gift of fairy friendship. Chris, as he was called, would have been very sad and lonely if the "little people " had not been kind to him, for though his father, who was a doctor, " had lots and lots of patients—sometimes the surgery was full of them, especially on cold nights when there was a • (1) The Fairies and the Christmas Child. By Lillian Gast. London : Harrap and Co. [5s. net.]—(2) Oddie and Ida,. By Lily Collier. London : Smith, Elder and Co. [3s. 6d.]—(3) The Bow-Wow Book. By Coulson liernehan. London : James Nisbet and Co. [2s. 13d. net.]—(4) The Book of the Kingdom. By S. B. Macy. London : Longmans and Co. [30. 6d. net.]— (5) Green Willow. By Grace James. London : Macmillan and Co. [5s. net.] —16a)c The English Fairy Book. By Ernest Rhys. London : T. Fisher Unwin. Us. —(7) Russian Wonder Tales. By Post Wheeler, Litt.D. London : A. and k. [6a.]—(8 and 9) Old TiM4 Tales. By L. Marsh, M.A. London : H. irowde and Hodder and Stoughton. [1s. and 10d.]—(10) Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales. London A. and C. Black. [6s.]—(11) Jolly Calls. By Helena Nyblom. London : Dent. [5e. net.]—(12r The Fables of £sop. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [15s. net.]—(13) Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. By J. M. Barrie. Same Publisher. [15a. net]—(14) Golden House. By R. S. Woolf (Mrs. Lock). London : Duckworth and Co. [1s. 6d. net.]—(15) Old Rhymes with New Tunes. Composed by B. R. Terry. London : Longmans and Co. [2s. 6d. net.]
fire—they did not seem to have much money to give him, and sometimes they ran away with their furniture in the night so's not to pay their bills." Therefore the father and the boy led a hard, anxious life. Then better times came and they were able to go south for a holiday, leaving the patients in the care of a "locust," as this young man was called by the doctor's housekeeper. These touches of real life prepare us for a book written with discrimination, as in fact it is. Titania and her elves in their English wood, the flower fairies of Provence, the queer imps of Brittany and Normandy, the German gnomes, and the Italian sorcerers and witches, are happily balanced with mortals, such as the attractive little boy himself, set against a background of work and play. Mr. Willy Pogany's black-and-white illustrations are full of fairy fun and fancy, but the coloured ones are not so pleasant to look at, as they suffer from the defects of their process.
There is a peculiar fascination about a story in which the people alter in size so as to fit suitably into strange surround- ings, and Oddle and Iddle, a new version of a well-tried theme, will, we feel sure, give great satisfaction to its readers. Besides this, the " grown-upness " of the hero, who yet remains a thoroughly nice boy, will please the children, even though they may not quite grasp all his meaning. The scene is laid in Africa, and is skilfully shifted from wide expanses of veldt and river to all sorts of queer places, such as the back of a hawk, or "the Cave of the Lions," where Moto, "the spirit of all the cats," lived with her husband Simba Sabuk and a fearful old witch. The heroine of the story is called Felicity, and her sudden appearances and disappearances, and her pursuit and final capture by the hero, form the chain on which many pearls of adventure are bung. Shadow fairies and water and fire fairies, to mention only a few of the many delightful creatures that we make acquaintance with in this book, all play appropriate parts in the story, while the more substantial figures of the English farmers and the Russian sportsman keep the reader in touch with the every day world in which we take leave of a happily united hero and heroine. There are a number of full-page black-and-white illustrations and a coloured frontispiece by Miss Joyce Crawshay Williams. Mr. Coulson Kernahan's The Bow- Wow Book is a collection of verse and prose, partly reprinted from Punch, The Girls' Own Paper, and The Windsor Magazine, and illustrated by Mr. Lawson Wood and Mr. L. Raven-Hill. Children who are just old enough to understand the literary and political allusions will be delighted with the jokes, such as the one about Mr. Lloyd George "A-robbing of a roost," and Mr. Bernard Shaw and the St. Bernard. The feelings of older readers will be wrung by the verses on the dog who was killed by a motor car and those on the old beggar. We should like to see "What Rot" carefully read and taken to heart by the many people who are intelligent enough to understand its more obvious meaning, but to whom the refinements of friendship with an animal are unknown. We cannot help fearing, however, that wide as are Mr. Coulson Kernahan's sympathies with dogs, he does not give his full confidence to cats. The description of the latter's attitude towards us, though it is undoubtedly amusing, is only superficially true, or perhaps we should say is only true of the cats whose qualities are undeveloped owing to their uncongenial surroundings. We would also point out that though the allusions which will strike grown-up readers unpleasantly in " My cat and my dog take a night off " would pass unnoticed by the children, the picture called a "Dog's night off" by Mr. Lawson Wood, of a degraded man with a dog's face, is a blot on an otherwise attractive book.
In The Book of the Kingdom Mrs. Macy tells " the Bible story from the birth of Samuel to the death of David." It is, on the whole, very well done, and she has cleverly worked in many long quotations. It is perhaps a pity that she has attempted to give explanations of things that other people might wish to interpret differently, but no doubt those of a dogmatic turn of mind will see no objection to her assertions, that is, if they happen to coincide with their own views on the subject. Here is a sentence from the chapter on the " Witch of Endor." "There had been many witches and wizards in the land, evil folk who, like the magicians of Egypt, had certain strange powers given them by the Father of Evil, whom they served." The italics are ours, but the passage will indicate our meaning without further explanation. The volume is clearly printed and illustrated with many rather
commonplace black-and-white pictures and a coloured frontis- piece by Mr. T. H. Robinson.
Green Willow is a collection of Japanese fairy tales which will be eagerly read by all lovers of the enchanted world of dragons, princes, and princesses. We have here the well- known flavour of folk-lore, but with a difference, for the eastern atmosphere is scented and flowery, and the boundaries of life and death are not defined with our own accustomed precision. But though the settings of these stories are charmingly new and fantastic, the essentials of all life are there, and our children will be stirred and we ourselves refreshed by meeting with brave Samurais and fair ladies, not to speak of such delightful creatures as the tea-kettle badger, the jelly-fish who held a position of trust at the Dragon King's Court, or that sensible young person, the Dragon Queen, who, when she heard that she could not gratify a sick fancy for a monkey's liver, remarked, " I must needs do without it ; give me my best brocade gown and I will get up, for• I feel a good deal better." Some of the stories are sad and others are weird and horrible, and should not be read to a nervous child. There is something haunting about the fate of 0"Yone at the hands of her stepmother, while the wicked lady of the "Peony Lantern" may give a shudder to the most matter•-of-fact reader. Mr•. Warwick Goble's full-page coloured illustrations are all pleasing, but more particularly those, such as " A Seagull of Kwannon " and " The Espousal of the Rat's Daughter," which are subdued in tone.
Of English fairy tales there is a capital collection by Mr. Ernest Rhys, called The English Fairy Book. We are glad to have "Tom Tit Tot" in all, or almost all, its delight- ful oddities of language (we only looked in vain for the adjective " gatless "), but we wish that he had thought fit to include the no less attractive tale of "Mr. Miacca and Tommy Grimes." The substitution of an old woman for Goldilocks in the story of "The Three Bears" gave us something of a shock, but we see in the preface that Mr. Rhys has taken his version from Southey's "Doctor." Mr. Frederick Witney's black-and-white pictures and red dragon initial letters, together with the clear type of the letterpress, help to 'omplete this engaging book.
Mr. Post Wheeler, of the American Embassy at St. Petersburg, has made a. collection of Russian Wonder Tales. In his interesting foreword he gives a sketch of " the genealogy of the skazki (skazatz = to tell), from the poetic symbolism of n primitive religion to the despised Cinderellas of fiction, from a revered drama of the high gods to a group of peasant Old Wives' Tales." Besides their archaeological and historical value these folk-tales are worthy of taking a high place in nursery literature, and their curious quality of familiar strangeness gives them a fascination all their own. For instance, a Frog Princess, and a lady Blue- beard, instead of the- gentlemen we have known all our• lives, together• with such recurring expressions as " the white world," where we might expect to read " the wide world," will give a pleasant feeling of unexpectedness to young readers. Here is a sentence which gives an agreeable sense of the boundless leisure of " the old age." " Time went on (but whether it was three weeks or three years that flew away matters little since one need not run after them), till it befell," &c. The illustrations are reproduced from pictures by Mr•. Bilibin, the Russian decorative artist, who knows well how to seize and fix in form and colour the wonders that the old storytellers put into words.
Another collection of fairy stories is by Mr. Lewis Marsh, called Old Time Tales. They are in two little volumes of the Oxford Elementary School Book Series, and are arranged geographically and historically, and written in language suit- able for little children.—A new edition of Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales needs little comment, but we would recommend children, who naturally skip prefaces, to make an exception in favour of Mr. Gordon Home's capital little sketch of the author's youthful adventures.—Jolly Calle is a book of charmingly fanciful allegorical stories with a Swedish setting. They are all well written, but the one called " All the Wild Waves of the Sea" has more than a touch of haunting beauty. There are a number of coloured and black-and-white illustra- tions by Mr. C. Folkard.—Admirers of Mr•. Edward Detmold's
work will be glad to possess this handsome edition of The Fables of 2&sop, which is founded on a previous one by the same illus- Illustrations by Evelyn Paul. London: liarrap and Co.
trator•.—Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is another beauti- fully illustrated book. Mr. Beckham, knowing its limitations, is very skilful in his use of the three-colour process, and these pictures, which show him at his best, are perfectly appropriate to fairyland and to that realm of fancy which Mr. Barrio has created for• us. This is a new edition taken from The Little White Bird. —Mrs. Lock has made a pleasing little story called Golden House out of the well-worn theme of a family quarrel and a reconciliation brought about by the children, in this case two engaging little boys.—Although Mr•. Terry's musical settings in his book of Old Rhymes with New Tunes invite comparison with those old ones that " spring like the larks from the furrows," they emerge from the trial with great credit to their composer ; and in spite of the fact that conscious art cannot recapture the old illusions, the new tunes so closely follow the rhythm of the words that they have caught something of their peculiar charm. Mr. Gabriel Pippets' pictures are quaintly attractive.
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