Kiwi’s Book Corner

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 139, 8 March 1941, Page 16

Kiwi’s Book Corner

JN “The Meeting Pool” (Angus and Robertson: Sydney) the queerest animals go padding past. The setting is in a remote part of Borneo, but that does not stop the Stick Insect and the Flying Fox and the Mouse Deer and the Slow Loris and hosts of others fsom becoming as familiar to you as our own forest creatures.

Along a narrow strip of land behind the meeting pool stretched the jungle, but it did not stretch very far. The White Man's coolies kept chopping it down and making huge plantations of rubber trees. The animals were faced with a dreadful problem. Each evening they bury their natural feuds and meet at the pool to discuss their difficulties. If the White Man keeps clearing the jungle there will not be enough room for them all. “Some of us will have to swim,” says Bruang the Bear. “I shall be waiting then,” murmurs the Crocodile, raising his wicked face “with the built-in smile.” All the creatures agree that the White Man must be stopped. And their individual cries and suggestions of how are what make this beautifully illustrated book so in. teresting. Each animal tells a tale. The tales do not help to solve the problem but they furnish a sort of “double story-book” effect. You will love reading them. (Here are some of the titles, “The Messenger of the Moon,” “The King of rhe Winds.” “The Jellyfish That Wouldn’t,” “Lazy Tok’’.) Their worries are solved quite suddenly. and in a most unexpected manner. How the sinister Python meets his end. and how the White Man himself visits the pool and tells HIS tale about “The Tree with the Softest Heart” is very exciting. You will be a lot wiser in many ways when this troop of jungle folk'has jostled by.

Porky Pig. Wellington: Owl has closed the wolery and refuses to pur. In an appearance. I suspect that you are the cause of the trouble. That jyiusical memory will have to be exercised or we may lose the occupants of the Wood . . including Mrs. Fu M.C., for ever! More practise. • please I Miss Billy. Wellington: You were better than one of your own good fairies that afternoon, for book choosing for somune else is always an exasperating affair for me. Yours was a highly successful act of mercy. It “went the rounds’’ and was acclaimed by all arid sundry as an ex-

rollout selection. Did you think better of the story mentioned at the time And when docs the B.D. occur? I had an idea that it was due to loom up quite soon.

A ivhole regiment of envelopes missed the mailbag this week, so if you cannot find your answer in this, column 'natch out for it in next week's Page.