"THRILLS" FOR BOYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18942, 13 February 1925, Page 7

"THRILLS" FOR BOYS.

Sir, —I should adviso "Just Eighteen" to read "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped" (Stevenson), "'The Coral Island" and "Dog Crusoe" (Ballantyne), "Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe), "The Cruise of the Cachelot" (Bullen), "Westward Ho" and "The Heroes" (Kingsley), the various Sherlock Holmes books (Conan Doyle), "The Last of the Mohicans" (Cooper), "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (Jules Veir.e), and even "The Tale of Two Cities," although I purposely did not mention either Dickens or Thackeray, as they are over the heads of the average boy of eighteen t'nd under. If he rpaas these, as a beginning, he will find any amount of shooting and fighting by boys "who still remain gentlemen." His let- j ter shows he has not read any of these, or he would not take it for granted that it is to the "shooting and fighting" that I object. He will find hair-breadth escapes, etc., but they are written by masters, who can present right and wrong in their proper proportions, in a clear and wholesome style, and in English— not a kind of hybrid Yankee. "A Gentleman of France" (Stanley Weyman) might, be read with profit by eighteen-year-olds, but most of his books are over the heads of boys between 10 and 16 years, who are the most avid "thrill-hunters " If he wants a good laugh, what about "Midshipman Easy" (Marryat) or "The Cock house at Felsgarth' (T. B. Reid) ? The authors mentioned bv "Just Eighteen," with the exception of S. Weymouth and S. Walkely, of whom I have never heard, are none of them "thrill" writers per se. Imagine the indignation of Wodehouse and Zane Grey at being coupled with the writer of "Hal Hiccup, the Boy Demon," conflicting with their gratification at being considered rivals of R. L. Stevenson! Any boy who can take "The Lost Planet" "(Eric Wood) seriously, after mading "A Voyage to the Moon" (Verne), or "The First Men in the Moon" ( Wells), must be of low mentality. One writer outrages evary natural law quite gaily; the others work things out more or less carefully, and make them seem possible, or (in the case of Jules Verne) even probable and feasible. There were no submarines when Jules Verne wrote "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the. Sea," and no airships when he wrote "The Clipper of the Clouds." In Ins "Voyage to the Centre of the Earth" a subterranean sea is found by the travellers, and now we hear of the supposed existence of one underneath the Sahara! Still, Eric Wood is not a "thrill" writer, as I meant it; his works are perfectly harmless, though more than far-fetched. If the books I recommended are no longer read, then the work of 'thrill" writers has been indeed deadly; but I refuse to believe that there are not many boys whose parents having developed their minds in the right lines, arc. still able to appreciate good writers, and are Hot driven to read awful tiash, written by half-educated pot boilers, who have never experienced anything inoro exciting; than a little difference with the rent collector, whose tastes do not lie in the direction of the "hero" crook, the "noble" cowpuncher, with his rev6lver loose m its holster, and the absurd " 'tec," with his ridiculous clues! M.J.