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9 Boys Will Be Boys and Books Be Read THE SUN, SUNDAY, OCTOBEU l, 1018. Some Rousing Reading By EDWARD N. TEALL. APPARENTLY tlie publishers do not believe that the boys are too much preoccupied with actual war work in which thny really are engaged with fine fervor- to have time and inclination for the reading of stories. Indeed, the pub lishers .do not limit themselves to stories with ''war interest" though it i.true that many more of the juveniles have it than lack it. Brewer Corcoran plays it up strong in his story, Tim Boy Scouts of Kendallville. When, in glancing over the leaves that first delicious preliminary, anticipating glance! you happen upon a sentence like the one at the top of page 204, you don't have to worry about the pro-America quality of the talc: "Don't pat a Hun pup with one hand unless you've got half a brick in the other." The chap who says that is a veteran of the Princess Pats. He and Dick Hall, Boy Scout, are pals and a. dandy pair! They save a munition plant from Herman 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 ful as literary diet as we used to think Nick Carter, untold ages ago. Boy Scout go to the South Seas with Edwin C. Burritt in Cameron Island or, rather, return theie, 'for these are the same fellows whose adventures were, nar rated in The Boy Scout Crusoes. This time they are in search of "specimens,"' floral, geological, faunal. They get stranded in the sand, lost in a cave, cap tured by marauding .Malays, mixed up in a volcanic eruption, shipwrecked and res cued. The story is not diluted with facts for instruction's sake, but carries, in sus pension as it were, a large amount of in formation that will make a worth while addition to those strangely assorted col lections of bits of knowledge that form the thesaurus of a boy's 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 wo don't be lieve the .boys do either, for a story that doesn't carry a lesson. Grit A-l'lenty 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 a story of Boy Scouts at Sea. Their nauti cal adventures are not just happen-so, cither; for they arc genuine Sea Scouts, with naval uniforms, nautical lingo and a eaucy 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 Ls extraor dinarily ignorant, but again, perhaps .there are boys, and even Boy Scouts, who did not know or know much, nt 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 thi3 book. Arc all boys "crazy" about the sea, we wonder; or is that a special interest, appealing only to a ma jority? 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. It oughtno be investigated. Without professing deep and intimate knowledge of Eskimo nature and ways of living, one may venture to assort that Mr. Roy J. Snell, who tells in Captain Kituk how a youngster of "the frozen North" conceived a great ambition and made gi-od, does know all about those strange people and the bleak, hard land they live in. Kituk went into the great All-Alaska dog race, to win money to buy the ship he wanted. He meant to become a great trader, and win back the lost prosperity of his once powerful family. He almost won the race; would haVb won it if his soft heart could have endured the sight of a dog dying in the snow. He overcame one obstacle after another, because no set back killed his courage. American boys can get some excellent pointers from this plucky little Eskimo lud. THE BOY 8COUTS OP KENDALL VILLE. Bit Bheweb Cokcouan. The Page Com pany. $1.50. j CAMEBON ISLAND. By Edwin C. Bus niTT. Fleming H. Revolt Company. $1.25. GRIT A-PLENTV. By Dillon Wallace. Fleming H. Revell Company. $1.25. BOY 'SCOUTS AT SEA. By Artiiuk A. Carey. Little, Brown k Co. $1.35. CAPTAIN KITUK. By Boy J. Ssru.. Lit tlo, Brown & Co. $1.35. Tales of Two Islands , ALPH HENRY BARBOUR and H. P. Holt have just written in Lost Island one of the best boys' stories pub lished in years. The yarn has to do with Dave Hallard, a Brooklyn youngster com- bunch of kids." But he met a bunch of reg ular fellows and the whole outfit had their hands full of circumventing German spies who were planning a secret submarine base and plotting to destroy a big muni tions plant busy with Government orders. It's a wholesome and thoroughly excit ing story. The boy won't quit till he finishes the last page. LOST ISLAND. By Baltii Henry Bae BOCK and H. I. Holt. The Century Com pany. $1.35. THE MYSTERY OF RAM ISLAND. By Joseph Bushxell Ames. The Century Company. $1.35. ing of a seaianng family, who just had to go to sea himself and who endured all sorts of hardships on one ship after an other, supported through some of them by the picture in his mind of the wrecked ship natteras, of which an old sailor had told him. The Hatteras had gone down with platinum aboard and platinum was worth $100 an ounce. Dave got on the Kingfisher, bound for Adelaide and Fremantle, Australia, as cook's help and cabin boy. He made a friend of the chief engineer, MaeTavish. MacTavish is a joy.-- He refers to the en gine room as "the rattle box doon below" and he remarks: "Dinna say I told you, but I have my suspicions these engines was once used by Noah in the ark." Davo is shipwrecked once twice and marooned on a South Sea island. But this is the part of the world in which the natteras went down; and before leaving At Dave undertakes, with Bruce Tempest aBd a Kanaka named Jim, a treasure hunt. Now, you musn't ask to know any more here. The Mystery of Bam Island, by Joseph Bushnell Ames, is a first rate boys' story .too. Like Lost Island, it has lots of action. The tale centres about a Boy , Scout camp. Alan Blake had fought his parents' de cision that he should spend the summer at the camp on Ram Island, mainly be- "cause he thought he would meet "only a SALT The Education of Griffith Adams Til no EDITION Fourth Edition (n Press 01 If you are not fully satisfied with what college is doing for your sons, you will be profoundly stirred by this searching novel. Now is the time to suggest reforms before schools return to before-the-war conditions. Published by E. PvDUTT0N & CO., 681 Fifth Are., N. Y. The Book of 'Bravery" IN these days of great deeds when men are fighting shoulder to shoulder to make this great world a safe and decent place to live in, Henry Wysham Timer's The Book of Bravery has a whole lot of interest. When one thinks of it, "bravery" is a most comprehensive term. "Some men are naturally intrepid," says Mr. Lanier, "but the bravest are those who fear and conqner it. And there is almost no limit to the possibilities of training one's na ture to encounter danger coolly; not only can one form a habit of attacking the difficult thing, of calmly measuring and meeting what would once have sent him flying into a panic, but there comes after a while a realization of that physio logical fact that 'danger makes us more alive.'" In order to get the most out of life we must first rid ourselves of fear and be able to summon all the resources of mind and body to meet an emergency. We find a kind of delight, it often seems, in facing almost anything just to cxper rience it. These tale3 which Mr. Lanier has care fully gathered together of heroic deeds of men in every- age, many of them well known, arc "their best own excuse." Wherever possible these stories are told in the words of the chief actors or those of eye witnesses and they are arranged according to an ascending scale of courage. In a few .instances Mr. Lanier has taken it upon himself to add scenes which were probable in order to round out the picture or to make it more vivid, but only, .ts he says, '"when this was possible with out violating historical accuracy." From Cassar Borgia's escape from his well earned enemies to Father Damien, who devoted his life to the-lepers of Molokai with a slow and hideous death always before him, these stories run what Mr. Lanier rightly calls "the gamut of human courage." They exhibit coura geousness of the more primitive type and progress to some memorable instances of. disciplined bravery. ..Take Cervantes, who gave the world Don Quixote. Cervantes had joined the army at the age of twenty-three years with a reputation as one of the most promising young poets of Spain. That poets are made of sterner stuff was shown at the battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571; Among the tales of daring is one of Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian ex-; plorer, who set the Hag of his native land at the furthest north in 1897. How Horatius held the bridge, how "Mad Anthony" Wayne took Stony Point, Cus ter's last fight and the capture of Quebee are all in The Book of Bravery. Another narrative in the volume deals with John Paul Jones, and still another with the first American Admiral, David Farragut, who stood in the port rigging and from his exposed post watched the battle. Two stories in The Book of Bravery deal with the present war. The first is an account of the single hande4 capture of a machine gun from the enemy by George Wilson, a Scotchman, and the rescue by him of a wounded comrade. Wilson was afterward presented with the Victoria Cross. The other is about A. J. Warncford, a young Canadian aviator who downed a German raiding Zeppelin within the German lines. The fight is given in detail. Wameford, on the day after the battle, had the Victoria Cross bestowed upon him by King George by telegram and upon the recommendation of Gen. Joffre the Cross of the Legion of Honor also rewarded his feat. Other deeds of this war as courageous as these will no doubt be gathered together to make up just such another volume as this. This volume is a veritable treasury for boy and girl. It is splendidly illustrated. THE BOOK OF BRAVERY. " By ITeneT Wysham Lanixc Charles Seribner' Sons.. $2. Plenty of Action! NEVER has there been such a season for boys' books. Some f olks think the men of 14 to 16 are too busy with war work in gardens and the various "drives" for the sale of stamps and bonds to bother with stories, but the publishers do not hold this view. Eugene Charles nenry de la Motte, Chevalier de 'Cbampclair, was having his complicated and thrilling adventure of The Stolen Credentials a few years earlier than Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy," made his climb up in the world. He may have known in the army Oliver Optic's Tom Somcrs. Gene came to America from" France in search of his uncle. The father less lad landed in New York after adven tures on the sea, and his uncle, after serving in the Mexican war, was away off at the other side of this broad continent Between them interposed not only the many broad American miles but the scheming and plotting of a young' im postor who tried to supplant Gene with the rich uncle. The boys of to-day may read with wonder but not much admiration, we guess of the New York of the horse car era. A good, lively yam. Tom Kerry played The Big Game not on diamond or gridiron, but partly in the dean's -office and partly in the field house. Tom was a particular bright star in the sky of eollegc athletics he kcptfclear of "conditions," too, and was a second group man in his studies, besides being careful of cuts a pitcher who almost tamed the Giants, a fullback equally great in split ting the middle of the line or wearing through a broken field; and, just to fill in, when laid up by a bad soldier, ready and able to pull an oar in the varsity shell when Princeton no, Haledon won- a heart cracking race from Franklin, which looks very like Cornell. Scout Lonny Drake became a "pota triot" in 1917, a private in the war farm army. The story's full of good;-brisk, outdoor sport. There's a veryfremarkable bear in it; also a mystery, and it ends, of all things, with a wedding. How (! should like to know if the boys share at all our bemusement over the fact that the author of a Scout book is a lady I She and the story make good, all right, but Henry Harper of the Wireless Patrol burned with youthful indignation when he heard how German spies were giving information to their corrupt Government about the sailing of American troop trans ports. He volunteered the services of the troop and Washington put them on the job 1 The result, it seems to us, serves to show the advisability of using boys to release men for war service. While the Wireless Patrol is available it is sheer extravagance to support the secret ser vice. But of course the spies may not -always use so simple a cipher as those that Mr. Theiss's scouts unravelled. THE STOLEN CREDENTIALS. Br Octave. Robert J. Shores. $1.50. THE BIG GAME. Br Lawkkncx PnatY. Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.35. SCOUT DRAKE IN WAR TIME. Br Isabel Hobnibbook. Little, Brown & Co. $1.35. . THE SECRET WIRELESS. By Lewis E. Theiss. W. A. Wade Company. $1.25. G e n 1 1 elm e n At Arms They wire all that nGxted men and officers alike These are stone of the men who fight. on land and sea. All the science of war is here, too, but it is the men that draw- you. The author, who signed himself "Centurion." is a British Staff Officer who has been under fire at the fronts from Flanders to Verdun. He knows and he can write. Ask your bookseller. Net $1.40. Published by DOUBLEDAY. PAGE & CO, Publishers Gentlemen At Arms