RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21148, 4 October 1930, Page 4

RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN

" The Children's Cargo." Lady Cynthia Asquith’s Annual. London: Byre and Spotttswoode. (6s net.) It would indeed be difficult to praise too highly, to welcome with too much warmth, the excellent publication known as “The Children’s Cargo” When it is considered that this delightful volume sells at about the same price as a new novel, and when the possibly doubtful enjoyment that the latter will bring is compared with the certain joy to be derived from the former, little more need be_ said in its praise. Furthermore, this annual is not only a book for children—it possesses literary merit that will endear it to their elders. What could be more exciting than a neat little poem by Miss Sackville-West, cynical student of Edwardian times, in which she reflects upon the gap that divides i the village children from those who have seen 25 summers? ' And Mr Algernon Blackwood gives us a very amusing sketch of the big-game hunter who is tried by the animals he has sought, and is found guilty, though “he. too, is a member of a herd, and the herd commands him in his helplessness,” the hippopotamus reflects. In this, as in most of the other stories in this book, the reader will obtain a few smiles unshared by the most sophisticated auditor, and that is a good thing, for it mi*ea reading of it a pleasure for both. Mr Hilaire Belloc, who is evidently a student of the “ Strewelpeter ” (?) book, has a moral to his deft narrative poem of the boy who lost a fortune through throwing stones. John, the boy m question, benefited under the will of his uncle until he hit him with a missile whereat the uncle’s nurse. Miss Charming, of frosty visage, received his money She now resides in Portland Square, and is accepted everywhere. In certain passages the oldster will have opportunities of improving his own and his youngster’s vocabulary: As time went on declining Health Transmogrified this Man of Wealth; And it was excellently clear That Uncle Bill’s demise was near. At last hie sole idea of fun Was sitting snoring in the sun. Among the other story-tellers represented in “The Children’s Cargo” we find A. A. Milne, the elusive Arthur Machen, Tanthe Jerrold, L. P, Hartley “Beachcomber,” Denis Mackail, Walter de la Mare. Lady Cynthia Asquith, Adelaide Eden-Philpotte, and Frances Cornford. Most of the illustrations in black and white are by Daphne Jerrold, but Mr Belloc has provided his own, and Mr de la Mare*s poetn has pictures by A. K. Macdonald. In conclusion, it may be mentioned that there are eight charming coloured plates, and that the book is attractively bound in linen.