Ages ten to fourteen
A Long Vacation Jules Verne tianslated by Olga Marx (ouP 16s). Historically speaking, a connecting link between Robinson Crusoe and The Lord of the Flies: fourteen shipwrecked schoolboys are found by pirates before they develop—or degenerate—into Golding charac- ters. (A misprint improves upon the dietary improvisations of previous castaways: `Doni- phan immediately cooked his rifle. "There's our dinner," he announced jubilantly.') School Remembered Gillian Avery (Gollancz 30s). A notable forager among children's old books has collected together a variety of reminiscences about those notorious 'happiest days.'
Flambards K. M. Peyton (ouP 17s 6d). Set in the hunting country of Essex in the years before the First World War, this book is re- markable for its masterly portrayal of a barbarous household where die stables are more important than life itself. But orphan heroine and flying-mad hero come through unbroken.
The Dolphin Crossing Jill Paton-Walsh (Macmillan 16s). Schoolboys really did join in the ferrying of British soldiers across the Channel from Dunkirk, and this evocation of summer 1940 is finely done, avoiding the dangers of heroic cliché. A Sapphire for September H. F. Brinsmead (out, 17s 6d). A gallivanting plot about a group of Australian student gem-hunters which allows plenty of scope for the author's racy, often funny, dialogue. But the core of the book is its vigorous and perceptive presentation of adolescents growing up. Victory on Janus Andrd Norton (Gollancz 16s). Forms a single SE saga with its fore- runner, Judgment on Janus. Vividly imagined, tautly written, this is as uncompromising a piece of fantasy as any teenagers are likely to find. The Family at Foxy Beck Marjorie Lloyd -(Hutchinson 15s). A warm, readable story for older girls about a London family which, for health reasons, has to adapt to life on a remote fell in the Lake District. Characters and situations sensitively handled.
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