Inoke Sails The South Seas

Children’S Books

Although Inoke Sails the

South Seas, by Ronald Rose, be

longs to the Collins series of picture books designed for the sub-teens group we see many adult visitors to Fiji buying the book.

INOKE lives on Naviti, the largest of the Yasawas, that lie like a screen 30 or 40 miles off the north west coast of Viti Levu. The islands are unspoiled, peopled only by Fijians whose main contact with Europeans is through the tourists that cruise through the group on local ships based at Lautoka.

The lives of the schoolboy Inoke and his friends and family are there fore largely uncomplicated by out side pressures and the author is able to present a pretty idealistic picture of South Seas life—as, indeed, life in the Yasawas can still be.

Inoke goes to the village school and helps in the communal tasks in the village but his ambition is to go to sea—an ambition he finally attains through a friend who runs a cutter to carry copra and bananas to the market on the mainland.

The narrative is slight—just suf ficient to hold the very excellent photographs together—but the effect is so good that the book will delight everyone who has had a glimpse of this part of the world as well as many who have not.

Ronald Rose, who is a senior

officer with Australia’s Department of Territories, took time off to col lect this material on Naviti. He has written other more serious books about Polynesians in New Zealand and Samoa and about the Australian aborigines, but this is the first time we have seen the full scope of his colour photography.—JT.

(Inoke Sails The South Seas

Collins. $A2.60.)

Where Are The Cattle

GONE, by Una Rothwell, is a thoughtful, well-written story, suitable for the early teens, of life on a Queensland cattle station, told through a young city boy, Don Peters. Good plot and genuine atmo sphere (the author was brought up on a Queensland property) make a worthwhile novel.—Sl.

(Where Are The Cattle Gone.

Angus and Robertson. $A1.95).

Things to make and do, by Fleur Ellis, is a good book for a rainy day. It is especially good for children who like to make things and use their hands a lot. There are dolls, puppet theatres, paper stand ups, mobiles, dolls’ furniture, cork models, miniature rock-gardens, etc.

There are plenty of drawings. So if you want something to do on a rainy day buy Things to Make and Do.—Dl (11).

(Things To Make And Do.

Horwitz, distributed by Ure Smith Pty.

Ltd. $A1.00.)

Inoke, the hero of Ronald Rose's new book "Inoke Sails the South Seas", catches a turtle in the Yasawas. The photograph, in full colour, appears on the cover of the book, reviewed on this page.