Attention, Please!
CHILDREN and young persons, nowadays, have a whale of a lot done for their enlightenment, one way and another. No longer are the golden apples hung at any height, for those to pluck that can. The fruit comes boxed and graded, wrapped and decorated with a sophisticated mer- chandising skill by no means basely allied to a truly Victorian belief in the absolute value of instruction.
The 'Young Historians' series is fine value for money. Two new titles, Republican Rome, by E Royston Pike, and Ancient Crete, by Frances Wilkins (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 12s. 6d. each), are well up to the mark already set. Mr Pike, long a journalist, has a somewhat rhapsodical style, but his enthusiasm for his subject, and his professional skill in cramming facts into a small space, both help with this complicated story. Miss Wilkins's style is plainer, more reserved, and perhaps, in territory so hot with magic and conflicting passions, this
is as it should be. At all events, she tells one of the world's most fascinating stories very sensitively and well.
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