MY VILLAGE IN YUGOSLAVIA; MY VILLAGE IN IRELAND

Statye, a village boy in Macedonia, a southern province of Yugoslavia, tells of his family, the other villagers on the mountain, who raise sheep for the yoghurt which sustains them and the wool which clothes them, and of his friend and schoolmate Tomo, with whom he learns about his country's capital and highest mountain. The photographic layout is very good -- variety of spacing, size, clear focus all helping the black and white pictures. The prose is factual, the episodes in the daily round of the two boys informative if not gripping...Similarly young Patrick tells of family life by the sea on the west coast of Ireland. Paddy's father is a farmer, who malt barley for beer. Paddy gathers periwinkles for pocket money, about the tower of Kilmacduagh, paints the chimney of his thatched roof cottage white and like boys the world over- loves his curragh, a small boat. These books don't offer an over-all view of a country. Rather they provide glimpses en fami of Yugoslavs and Irish village people. Their place is chiefly that of supplements or background material in social studies, for their brevity procluden a larger picture of life, economically or geographically.