This Year's Boyish Hero
THE fair and confident profile of the boy in Miss Ivy Bolton's Shadow of the Crown (Longman, 8s. 6d.), appears on the jacket, and hints at the string of brave deeds against pirates, Turks, and Moors that we discover within. Pushed into the Military Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem by Philip of Spain for his own ends, Francis the dauntless, finds himself at fourteen, a page in Malta, and a servant of the sick. During his free times of an evening on the battlements he dreams of the great fighting future that awaits him. Francis is splendid, yet quite human, and here Miss Bolton scores a triumph. Inhabitants of the fifth form who do not entirely loathe their history lesson will also deign to approve the less- distinguished but quite ardent hero in. The Adventures of Jack-a-Lantern, by S. Walkey (Sheldon Press, 4s. 6d.). Young Morrice in the Days of the Terror follows recklessly in the steps of Jack, a mysterious figure of the Scarlet Pimpernel type.
Another hero quite worth knowing is Adam, in Brent of Gatehouse (Oxford Press, 5s.). He has none of the brazen courage of Francis and Morrice : " Oh, make no mistake about that ; this slow-thinking, slow. moving, undistinguished old Adam, was never known to have launched out in any particular."
There is some subtlety, an almost unknown quality in the average hopelessly conventional book for boys, in this story of one neither good at games nor classics; almost over serious, stumbling among his own diffident thoughts about the high traditions of his house. Pleasant, manly, and unexagger- rated, Brent of Gatehouse with its admirable ghost mystery, is at the head of its class ; and Mr. Gunby Hadath must be congratulated.
Billy is ow next hero—Billy, who when he became a real cowboy, changed his name to Big. On an unhappy day recently, we read that cowboys had vanished off the earth's surface ; this must be false. For Mr. Will James has not only written of a cowboy and cow-horse born the same day in Big Enough (Scribners, 8s. 6d.), but has drawn many pictures of them both, leaping and resting. A tough, fearless one is Bill (who went forth, almost uneducated, riding into blue horizons), but most readers will love the loyal little horse best. A book with an animal hero slides almost inevitably into a sacred niche on the schoolroom shelf.
The well-brought-up parent will try instinctively to get a book on flying for his son. Jack and Holly, hefty sixth-form giants, have the luck to go on The Cruise of the. Air-Yacht Silver Cloud,' by Rowland Walker (Nelson, 5s.) and find with truly British exclamations, treasure trove on the desert island. Mr. Percy Westerman, whose omnibus volume of three pirate-submarine books published by Nisbet for 3s. ed., we hail with satisfaction, has written In Defiance of the Ban (Mackie, 6s.). His Alan is the hero ingenious, who constructs his own monoplane, and later soars over South America. There is a singularly calm illustration here of Alan's first descent by parachute.
All boys that may need stirring up a little can read how quite a modest Scout, Ted Farman, who never -dreamed of such a thing, before it was put to him, dared to go down to the bottom of the sea to walk- among coral groves in a diver's helmet. Opening Davy Jones's Locker, by Thames Williamson, when this incident occurs, introduces skilfully Certain facts among its scenes of marine adventure. " Imagine there being twenty-three whole fish in that brute's stomach " exclaims Ted, when the body of a shark is dragged on deck.
For lads approaching the University age, not enough is provided. Coppernob, Shipowner (Oxford Press, 5s.) may please them with its search fora lost ship, but Mr. Lawrence Bourne is hardly at his best and brightest here. More original is Chinese Junk, by Priscilla Holden (Longmans, 8s. 6c1.), which deals with a sinister jade talisman. Though the narrative is recounted by a mere girl, it will yet claim Tom, Dick and Harry's dose attention.
We miss a really humorous book for boys ; also a story written round an English farm.
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