Two For The Kids
p. 98 · Read in the full issue
WE don’t know what Ruth Park— better known for her adult novels about Sydney slum life— knows about the Cook Islands but no doubt her The Road Under the Sea will find enthusiastic readers amongst the youngsters for whom it is designed.
According to Ruth the sea around the Cook Islands is dark blue as ink and hisses and plumes about the shores of clouds of miniature islets whose only inhabitants may be a coconut palm, a crimson butterfly or a resting seabird like a flake of snow!
However, in spite of all this, four youngsters solve the mystery of a missing schooner and find an undersea city which (according to the illustra tion) is something more likely to be found in the Aegaen than the Pacific.
But it’s all good fun.
(The Road Under The Sea. Pub
lished by Ure Smith. 18/9.) A little bit more of this earth and for slightly older children is The Mystery of Secret Beach, by George Finkel.
It all begins when a schoolboy finds a strange cylinder washed up on a southern NSW beach and it goes on to describe the doughty deeds of a young Navy lieutenant in his efforts to save Australia from the evil intentions of a foreign Power.
(The Mystery Of Secret Beach.
Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. 18/6.)