LOOKOUT SUMMER

A summer job as a fire-watcher for twelve weeks in the Oregon mountains teaches city-bred Vickie, a talented violin student, new dimensions of love and selflessness. She is confused and uncertain as to the extent of her emotions in regard to her young man, and feels that her only certainty lies in her music. It takes the disaster of a forest fire and close work with the fire-fighting crew, to bring her -- through selfless service- to deeper knowledge of herself and her true emotions. There's a sub-plot in the romance of Vickie's bachelor uncle, a ranger, which fills in some gaps in this teen-age novel. But actually, the only really fresh interest that emerges concerns the detailed portrait of the daily round of a fire lookout.