YOUNG READERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27047, 23 May 1953, Page 3

YOUNG READERS

Puppet Plays for Children. By Antonia Ridge. Illustrated by Barbara C. Freeman. Faber. 104 pp. Antonia Ridge is an experienced and talented writer of stories for young children. In these six plays she introduces her readers to a family of puppets called the Bookworms, whose gay and fantastic adventures all take place in a public library. The puppets were made and dressed by two little friends of the author; she was invited to meet them and write plays for them. Her plays are fun to read, but even more fun to perform. Only one set is needed and only five or six puppets, and useful hints are provided in the introduction and the stage directions. NO CASTANETS AT THE WELLS by Lorna Hill (Evans Brothers) is another of this author’s delightful stories set in the Sadlers Wells Ballet School. In his story, Caroline Scott is training for ballet dancing, but is a failure. However, with the help of Angelo Ibenez she takes up Spanish dancing, in which she is successful. Lorna Hill tells the story in an appealingly simple way; Eve Guthrie illustrates the story with lovely and imaginative drawings. A Junior reviewer says, “Every child who loves dancing should read this humorous and interesting book.” THE BRIDAL GOWN AND OTHER STORIES (Faber. 206 pp.) by Diana Ross, illustrated by “Gri,” is an engrossing book of modern fairy tales by an author who has already proved her remarkable inventive talent in children’s fiction. There is the genuine touch about all these stories, any of which might have come out of an old book of folk tales, and the illustrations, suitably medieval in style, are thoroughly in keeping with the stories.