The best story of the yarn-spinning, come-gather-round-and-listen kind, is The House on the Shore…. From the time when Jim comes walking barefoot down the mountain to the strange village by the sea to find his uncle, to the final life and death chase in sailing boats across the night sea, there is no let-up of the tension [in The House on the Shore]. It is fine story-telling, by a writer who never fails to record just the sort of details that children want from each scene; whose every character is lively and round. There are several authors producing good, well-worked-out adventure stories today. Eilis Dillon should be noticed for being, imaginatively, a jump ahead of the rest of them.