The sun., 1918-10-13
Some Rousing Reading
By EDWARD N. TEALL.

L \ believe that the boys are too much
preoccupied with actual war work-in
which they really are engaged with fine
fervor-to have time and inclination for
the reading of stories. Indeed, the pub
fishers do not limit themselves to stories
with war interest'-though it is true
that many more of the Juveniles have it
than lack it.
Brewer Corcoran plays it up strong in
his story, The Boy Scouts Of KsndaurilIe.
When, in glancing over the leaves-that
first delicious preliminary, anticipating
glance you happen upon sentence like
the one at the top of page 2O4, you don't
have to worry about the pro-America
quality of the tale: Don't pat Hun
pup with one hand unless you've got half
brick in the other" The chap who says
that is veteran of the Princess Pats. He
and Dick Hall, Boy Scout, are pals-and
a dandy pair! They save a munition
plant from German plotters. The story
is told with plenty of boy slang, which
gives it pep without coarseness. It's
clean, it moves fast, and is just as grip
ping"-and much more sound and health
full as literary diet-as we used to think
Nick Carter, untold ages ago.
Boy Scouts go to the South Seas with
Edwin c. Burritt in Cameron Isldml-or,
rather, return there, for these are the
same fellows whose adventures were mar
rated in the Boy Scout Crusoes. This
time they are in search of Specimen"
floral, geological, faunal. They get
stranded in the sand. lost in cave, cap
tured by marauding Malays, mixed up in
a volcanic eruption, shipwrecked and res
cued. The story is not diluted with facts
for Instructions sake, but carries, in sus-
pension as it were, large amount of in
formation that will make q worth while
addition to those strangely assorted col
lections of bits Of knowledge that form
the thesaurus of boys growing, eager
and tenacious mind.
Dillon Wallace knows Labrador, and
his stories of life in the northern wilds
are strong, simple and likable as the
places and the people who appear in
them. We don't care, and we don't be-
leve the boys do either. for a story that
doesn't carry a lesson. Grit 4-Plenty ex-
hibits the beauties of the simpler virtues
above all, the one that enters into the
title
Most Of the Boy Scouts we have heard
about were land creatures, but here is
story of Boy Scouts at Sea. Their nauti-
cal adventures are not Just happen-so,
either; for they are genuine Sea Scouts,
with naval uniforms, nautical lingo and
saucy little ship that carries them from
Portsmouth to Provincetown, and down
under the Cape to Vineyard Haven. They
take part in the rescue work in the Salem
fire, and in various ways show what the
Scout law-and the Scout spirit-do for
a fellow. Perhaps the reviewer is extraor-
dinarily ignorant, but again, perhaps
there are boys, and even Boy Scouts, who
did not knOw-or know much, at any
rate-abOut the salt water members of
the great brotherhood. Whether a boy
has known about them or not, he is bound
to like this book. Are all boys "crazy"
about the sea, we wonder; or, is that
special interest, appealing only to a ma
jorityf Certainly, those who do care for
it do so passionately. But we rather sus-
pect that sea stories have not quite the
universal command of boy enthusiasm
that army stories. and machinery stories
possess, 1t oughtko be Investigated.
Without protesting deep and intimate
knowledge of Eskimo nature and ways of
living, one may venture to assert that Mr..
Roy J. Smell, who tells in Captain Kituk
how youngster of "the frozen North"
conceived q great ambition and made