The Doubleman by C.J. Koch has met with less than enthusiastic reviews in America. Paul Hutchinson gave it the thumbs down in Library Journal, finding ‘the seasoning of incest and drug-inspired rape’ to be pointless. Cheri Fein in the New York Times Book Review saw the main culprit as Richard: ‘Our guide remains such a rigid, even cold character that the double world, “enchanted and endlessly sweet”, fails to spin him or us in its web.’ UQP has just released two Barbara Hanrahan novels in paperback in the U.S., The Frangipani Gardens and Where The Queens All Strayed. It will be interesting to watch the progress of another UQP release, The Blood Vote by Jack Lindsay.

The Children’s Book Council of Australia is sponsoring an ‘Aussie Books for Kids’ exhibit in libraries all over the U.S. I caught up with the show at a Long Island library where folksong tapes and professional story tellers backed up the display. Frances Miller assembled the kit with the help of children’s book enthusiasts, like Nancy Shearer and Millicent Jones, and limited funds (not to mention other limitations, like each exhibit having to fit into a single carton and not weigh more than fifty-five pounds!). Each kit contains sixty-six books, audio-visual materials, maps, posters, bibliographies and information sheets. Eight sets are circulating simultaneously and so far schools and libraries in Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New York have enjoyed the show. Sponsors of the project in addition to the Children’s Book Council have been the ABPA which supplied the books, James Bennett Pty. Ltd. who printed an annotated booklist free of charge, the Literature Board which donated books not donated by their publishers, the Australian Information Service which paid for shipping, and Continental Airlines.