Trees in Britain. By S. R. Badmin. (Puffin Picture Books.
9d.) A.B.C. By D. M. Chapman. (Baby Puffin Books. 9d.)—Counting Book. By D. M. Chapman. (Baby Puffin Books. 9d.)—It's Nice To Be Me. Poems by D. E. Stevenson. Illustrated by Hilda Austin and Leonard Cotterill. (Baby Puffin Books. 9d.) AN excellent addition to the Puffin Series is S. R. Badmin's Trees in Britain. Any enquiring child of seven or upwards, at all familiar with the countryside, would enjoy this book, which gives straight- forward information about the habits and characteristics of trees to be found in this country, with notes on the uses of the wood and illustrations in colour and black-and-white, showing winter and summer growth and details of leaves, flowers and fruit. An excellent ninepennyworth. The new Baby Puffins are less successful. They are at once too babyish and too sophisticated. Children at the alphabet stage are unlikely to know words like " artist," " violin," " vase," " dumbells," " quintuplets," &c. Nor should C stand for Ch, words like chair and cheese, nor K. for knife. Nor should objects be confused with attitudes, so that the letter U is accom- panied by the drawing of a Unicorn and of a boy Upside down. Worst of all, the drawings are really ugly. Much the same criticism applies to the book on numbers by the same author, who was presumably responsible for the horrible doggerel accompanying the drawings. It is not easy to write good poetry for children. Miss Stevenson claims that hers is reminiscent of A Child's Garden of Verses. " Reminiscent" is a euphemism. They do serve to remind one how good Stevenson's children's poems were and how utterly uncontaminated by the whimsical (" I• wish I was a grown-up man "), the patronising (" It's really rather fun ") and the snobbish ("I have to go for walks with nurse "). A truer analogy would be to Christopher Robin (" Alister James is quite grown-up ") and to those of us who like Christopher Robin I say, " Stick to him." Highland Journey. By Colin MacDonald. (Moray Press. 6s.)
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