YOUNG READERS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 3

YOUNG READERS

SHEPHERD’S PURSE by Campbell K. Findlay (Harrap, 187 pp.), is an unusual story in that the herb, Sandy McDougal, has the makings of a rascal. He is the orphaned son of a fisherman who drowned while stealing a cache of gold belonging to a sheep-Sarmer, a Mr Campbell, of Ardrioch a property on one of the Western Isles of Scotland. In this book, Sandy is taken on as shephed handyman at Ardrioch. but is dissatisfied and restless. He quickly makes plans to carry on the whisky distilling that he knew his father practised, thereby hoping to augment his small income with the view to going to Glasgow to “better” himself. He is thus caught up in the island’s underworld. Meanwhile, be finds that work on the .farm is more agreeable than he expected and responds to the trust that Mr Campbell places in him. His friendship with the steady boy, John McInnes, is another rehabilitating factor in Sandy’s life, and though he becomes involved in sheep-stealing and murder, the salvage of his character is complete by the end. The hero’s character development is plausible, but there is a good deal of violence and melodrama in this story. Mr Finlay is very familiar with his setting and writes about tins part of Scotland vividly. There is also much Interesting detail about the nature of Highland shepherding. Though the plot is rather unsavoury, it moves at a fast pace and older children will find it absorbing.

Michael Taylor found the summer camp in Yorkshire an anti-climax after the months of expecting something quite different. He was used to the crowded streets and houses of a busy industrial town, and the strange quietness of the country perplexed him to the stage where he wanted, above all things, to go horn* to bis noisy city. But that was before Michael was given the job of collecting the camp’s milk from an adjoining farm. There he met new and exciting friends. For good measure in SUMMER VISITORS (Oxford University Press. 232 pp.) William Mayne gives Michael a mystery to solve. 1