Enjoy Your Family

THE job of being a parent is an international one, and it’s under standable that those guides to parent hood usually available in Australia were written in the UK or the US, where populations are such to make expensive books on an extensive subject worth the cost of production.

But it’s nice, finally, to find the Brisbane firm of Jacaranda Press producing a handsome 330-page guide to parenthood from an Aus tralian viewpoint, written by a dis tinguished Australian, Phyllis Cilento, wife of Sir Raphael Cilento, a former Director of Health in New Guinea. She is the mother of film star Diane, and of five other children besides Diane, four of whom are also doctors like their parents.

This book deals in a practical, commonsense fashion with preg nancy, childbirth and childhood, from the early stage to the teen stage. The sections on small children are especially useful and detailed and young mothers will probably get the most value from this book.

But there is material here even for the parent who thinks he is too old to learn.

What to do with a malingering child, the prudent diet for high blood pressure, how to deal with dandruff, bad posture, boils, tem per tantrums, teething, sex, back ward children, teenagers who stay out late, and vague tummy aches— it’s all here.—Sl. (ENJOY YOUR FAMILY. Jacaranda Press. 52/6.)