THIS YEAR; NEXT YEAR

Presumably, it is sacrilege to criticize a volume of de la Mare verse for young readers, but this seems to me machine made, lacking in the slightest evidence of the imagination and sparkle and child-quality of the older poems, and hackneyed and dated in thought and phraseology. There are a few exceptions -- The Little Shop almost makes up for the others. There's a good publicity story about how de la Mare was fascinated by the colored drawings of an unknown artist (Harold Jones) and wrote the verses to go with the pictures. The de la Mare name and the lovely quality of the color work will sell some books, but have a look yourself before recommending it.