1961-12-16 — Page 11

CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1961.

Page

BOOKS

FOR CHRISTMAS

The Junior Critics

REVIEW THE

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

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David Bratby, 6. son of arist John Bialby, reviews The Cut Thjel by Joan Lay Abelard-Schumat, 123, JJ

INGER MOLL is my

favourite because she is pretty and because she invited them all to tea at the end. They were naughty to eat those kippers. I think everybody will hate Jim Marlow because it's jolly cruel to steal cats that belong to people.

Tan Cat

I wish they would draw that

on the Saucy S amperty if he is only supposed to have one ear,

Arabella was supposed to be elting behind some old tin cons

Clemency Fisher

Jenny Quayl

Why does it say tin cans there aren't any?

I like this book, but I would rather reed Alice in Wonder land. It's better than the Jungle Book.

Mark Hoare 4 daughter

the Land Mayor of Tanden

by 11111 teviews Gringolo

Koralk

Mardonid, 205

B

RINGOLO is the story of a dormouse that get lost when be was small and

it

Timothy Bett ̧''

Biman Bain

I enjoyed the book very much and thought it was very good. Gringole was rather like the two and pet mice I used to have, seemed a very real little animal. I think perhaps I shall one day read the sequel, Timba.

Cory Fisher, 8, daughter

James Fisher of naturalist and authoress Margery Fisher, Frews Two Thumb Thomes, by Barbars Freeman. Faber, 13- 00

TW

Satan Symons

sea

pean) freshwater and fish, but also chapters on fly-fishing, spinning and live- baiting, and articles on big- game fishing, lobsters, crabs, prawns, shrimps, crayfish, shellfish, and fish for the aquarium.

It is profusely illustrated with

fish pictures of the

and the tackle, and diagrams of how and where to fish. Mr Nadaud has, i think, tried to include TWO-THUMB THOMAS is too much, and has consequently not been able to write very much found himself in a

an amusing, exciting about anything, but for house

thuse where little girl called book. Thomas is brought up who are thinking about taking Kiki took him as her pet. by an unusual foster-mother, up angling as a hobby, this

the book. The story tells of their a cat called Lynette. As she various adventures together is a school eat she insists on until finally Gringolo gets Thomas going to school. restless and Kiki, although she is very sad about it. sets him free.

This Irish

is a

Irish tale rare triumph

By ARTHUR CALDER-MARSHALL

AN ONLY CHILD. By Frank O'Connor. Macmillan. 21s.

MIKE O'DONOVAN was born in 1903 in Blar-

ney-street, Cork, a lane which began "near the river bank, in sordidness" and ascended the hill "to something like squalor."

He describes his own develop- ment in terms of people and situations. The most brilliant of all is the sketch of three women

He was the only elild Michael O'Donovan labourer and veteran, manun labourer and and Minnic compulsive drunk O'Connor, an orphanage girl of neighbours beauty and noble inocence, who had been a drudge in other people's homes before she became a drudge in her own.

up

Ellen was gong to Hell, or a herever it is puple who think only of themselves. Minnie was gang to Hover, if that is The right name for the place where people go who think only of poisoned cats and starving dogs and dying people. Gertie, When Mike O'Donovan grew of course, was merely going to

No self-pity

and had to choose

a - London."

to the

name for the stories he wrote when not teaching Irish. he took

as a tribute O'Connor woman he had always hoped to deliver from the drunken tyranny of his father.

War account

Three-quarters of the way through, the book sags with the description of the author's His own childhood was tough. literary interests in adolescence; But the comparison with what but it rises again at the end. his mother had suffered in her

account of the tragi- childhood prevented self-pity comedy of the Irish Civil War, Autobiographies covering the in which O'Connor, reporting

in the

first twenty years of life are not for the Republic, lost his physi- as easy to write as this one is to cal freedom and found his free- read.

ton of raind.

He blends the fairy-tale valus An Only Child is a triumph, of childhood (the young prince the intensely local description delivering the enchanted maiden « Ireland in the first quarter mother from the wicked ogre of the century, which is ther) with the mature retro- versal in the emotions pect of a man in his late Afties. experience it conveys.

uni-

Thomas Ives in a house which is only inhabited by seven rata. The rats think it is their house so they bring disaster

on Thomas, tearing his blazer and

Simon

som

ol

Bain, 10, Richard Findlater and Bain. Romany

reviews Garry Hattiday and the Ray ca Death by Justin Blake. Fater. 9 64.

is

mysteriously stopping the clock THE story doesn't really

and then fighting a battle.

is

Here a pece 1 specially liked

"Sweep up the rats-and

than over-

Sweep up the rats and

them over Early

roll

T get going until the end

of the first chapter, but the idea of the mysterious "Voice" is very effective. roll The excitement builds up gradually when Garry Halli- day's airplane nearly catches fire. Soon it all gets up to the real standard of these books and I was

very im- pressed.

the mo-oo-ening.” Thomas makes friends with two of the rals, and I'm glad to say that in the end he finds d proper home with some nice people.

Jenny Quayle. 11. daughter of actor Anthony Quayle. reviews Two.Thumb Thomas. Aloft, by Mary Norton. Dent, Is. Bd.

THI

the

The whole story is based on a certain jig-saw puzzle whose front picture turns out to be the mysterious "Voices" hide- vul. The climax is a helicopter leaving from the roof and being HIS is the fourth of the destroyed in mid air, and

"Volce" escaping by rowing wonderful books about across the lake in the disguise Pod, Homilly and Arrietty. ot a caretaker, In this one they arrive at

This book provides not So the Borrowers model dreamt mich excitement as I expected, town Little Fordham. They but is well written, and the TV are captured and kept in an series will add to its popularity.

the winter, but attic for they float to safety in a gas- filled balloon. They return to Little Fordham but decide it is safer to live in mill.

Sarah Symons, 13. daughter of author Julian Symons, reviews

The Singing Strings, by Dorothy Clewes. Colima, 109, ed. an old

HIS is a story about a famous violist called

This is a wonderful book for any child, and it is very sad it should be the last in this very Nicholus Matthias. There is human series by Mary Norton.

I am sure that all children will a mystery surrounding him more than enjoy this book, as and his manager Horace

have done.

Elik, which the three Had- ley children, Peter, Eileen and Bob help to solve.

Timothy Scott,

author un or

HmLd

12. critic and Scott. reviews Fish Fishing, by Jerome Nadaud. Odhoma, 12a, 60.

Peter writes the story which Involves Russian

spies, viola sonatas and the like. The book has a realistic London back- THIS very comprehensive ground. It is a sort of mystery story but there is no proper book on fishing for be- puzzle to solve. ginners contains not only

book Is well but not out- chapters on all the major buying for a Christmas present standingly written. It is worth British (and some Euro- but not for oneself.

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