Popular Series

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 4

Popular Series

Additions to several of the popular series of children’s books are offered by the publishers.

Among the popular series, none is more significant of the standard of literature for youngsters than Dent’s Pennant Library which is a uni-formly-bound library of selected fictional stories that have been published in the last ten to twenty years. The six new titles are Richard Arnutrongs’s "The Whinstone Drift,” Arthur. Gatherall’s "Jackals of the Sea,” Julia Clark’s “Crab Village," Margaret Govan’s “The Trail of the Broken Snowshoe,” Patricia Lynch’s "The TurfCutter's Donkey goes Visit. Ing,” and Noel Streatfeild’s "Tennis Shoes.” Each story carries the original illustrations.

Odham’s are issuing a Let’s Travel series. The work of notable photographers and artists Is produced in fullpage coloured pictures; a map of the relevant country is printed; a bright text succinctly describes outstanding features. The treatment in pictures and text is remote from guide book routine, yet producing true reflections of the subject. The subjects of four Let’s Travel books to hand are Italy, France, Switzerland and Holland. The printing and lithography (done in the United States) are excellent. New titles have been added to the Gazelle, Antelope and Reindeer series by Hamish Hamilton. These are deservedly popular, encouraging the child who has just learnt to read by making it a quickly rewarding pastime. The series are all well illustrated with a large and readable type and of standard lengths giving children the satisfaction of having read a whole book. Gazelle books provide reading for the five to eight-year-old. Of the new titles, Elfrida

Vipont’s “Larry Lopkins” the story of two children and their dog and Ruth ManningSanders’s “Slippery Shiney,” the exploits of an escaped circus seal, are quite outstanding. Antelope books are designed for the six-to-nine year olds. New titles include Reginald Taylor’s story for budding soldiers, “Andy and his Last Parade;*’ Brian Hall's “Abdul the Grey," the adventures of a lordly Abyssinian cat; Lace Kendall’s story of a young Pawnee Indian boy. "The Mud Ponies; John Pudney’s “Tunnel to the Sky” in which three children explore a disused railway and make some unexpected friends; and Showell Styles’s “Mr Fiddle,” an elderly gentleman who had a way with birds, children and animals. Although the standard of the series is uniformly high, the- palm must be awarded to Paul Anderson’s delightful setting for some Korean folktales, “The Boy and the Blind Storyteller.”

Reindeer books are for the seven to ten year olds to read to themselves. Girls will enjoy William Mayne’s “No More School,” the story of some enterprising country children who banished boredom while the teacher was away ill and the school closed; and Nicolas Fisk mixes humour with the excitement of an encounter with jewel thieves in “The Fast Green Car.” “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and “The Lost Princess” have been added to Dent's Children’s Illustrated Classics series. The first, by Frank L. Baum, has been described as the best-loved fairy-tale ever written by an American author. The second joins three other books by George MacDonald in the C.I.C. series. Apart from many line drawings each book contains four coloured plates.