Stories for School Girls
"I write of Jam, a subject stiff With interest to the reader if lie is (or she is), as am I From youth' of lam a votari."
So, says Mr. Belloc, one of the inhabitants of Number Four Joy Street (Blackwell, 6s.), and all who visit this pleasant house may be sure of plenty of jam and no powder in it.- Joy Street is a book for all children, and I fancy it will often be borrowed by their elders.
There is, unfortunately, a little too much powder and that not very carefully concealed in Reginald Callender's. Elizabeth and the Angel (Religious Tract Society. 8s. 6d.). The R.T.S. also publish Adele in Search of a Home, by Dora 0. Thomson (3s. 6d.). Adele herself is charming, and so is her adopted family, who should make many friends among eight to ten-year-old children.
This year's school stories are not very inspired, though they will, no doubt, be as popular as their predecessors. Life at the average school is too uneventful to provide matter for interesting stories. On the whole, rules are kept and bounds are not broken : there are few deeds of daring and fewer fires. Children of eight or twelve do not smuggle little runaway Princesses into their schools in the way we read of in Princess Natalie's Adventure (Oxford University Press. 2s. 6d.).
The Oxford Press also gives us The New School and Hilary-, by Winifred parch (3s. 6d.), The New Girl and Nancy, by Dorita Fairlie Bruce, and The Girls of Tredennings (5s.). This last one by Olivia Fowell is the best of these, and keeps within the bounds of possibility.
A fresh note is struck in The Exploits of Evangeline, by Christine Chaundler (Oxford University Press. 3s. 6d.). Evangeline expects to become the school heroine, and the story of her disillusionment is amusingly told.
The Girl Guides of fiction seem to have as exciting lives as their schoolgirl sisters. Here are a few books which will be enjoyed by Guides and Brownies of from ten to fourteen years :—The Pluck of the Coward, by Mrs. Osborn Hann (Black, 2s. 6d.), The Honour of a Guide, by E. M. Channon (Nisbet, 3s. 6d.), and June, the Girl Guide, by Brenda Girvin (Oxford University Press. 3s. 6d.).
For girls in their later 'teens there are two very readable historical novels, The Wild Bird, by Margaret Stuart Lane (Oxford University Press, 5s.), and Una Breakspear, by A. D. Martin (James Clark and Co. 7s. 6d.). Miss Brenda Girvin has written a new. thriller, Di the Dauntless (Blackie. 5s.).
The everyday stories for children are rather disappointing, too. One misses the happy leisurely families that Mrs. Molesworth and Mrs. Ewing introduced to an earlier genera- tion. These modern children of story-books are lively enough, but their lives are over-complicated : there are none so lovable as were the Bastables in Mrs. Nesbit'is delightful books. We are told that modern children crave for excitement and a cinema atmosphere, so they will be delighted to meet Joan's Best Chum, by Angela Brazil (Blackie, 6s.), Jane and the Bean Stalks, by Ethel , Talbot (Arthur Pearson, 3s.. 6d.), My Lady. Venturesome, by Dorothea Moore (2s.), and Star Maiden, by Eleanor Pegg (Sheldon Press. 2s.).
One of . the best- of these everyday--stories -is -Summer at Hallowden -Farm, by Doris Pocock (Nisbet. 3s. 6d.).
All the above books- may be considered children's novels. The best that can be said about them is that they are light and fairly amusing : the worst that they are improbable and, for the most part, lack charm.
The Oxford University Press has published a really delight- ful edition of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome (10s. 6d.), illustrated by E. A. Cox.
" What is the-use of a book," said Alice, " without pictures and without conversation ? " Dickens is a very conversa- tional writer, but so far, those of his books which have been presented to the " Very Young " have lacked pictures. Mr. E. H. Shepard has now altered this, for he has illustrated The
Holly _Tree, and Other ...9toties -(Partridge. 6s.). think- Dickens will gain many childish admirers this Christmas,
for every one of Mr. Shepard's pictures is a joy. - , BARBARA -
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