SECRET OF THE ANDES

The Inca boy, Cusi, and his search for a family are portrayed in a story that is crystal clear as the cold mountain waters, as ethereally expressed as the morning air that softens the tips of the Andes. One day convinced by an errant minstrel that his lonely llama herd's life in Hidden Valley—with only old Chuto, the llama Misti, and the dog Suncca, for company—was far from complete, Cusi starts a journey to brilliant Cuzco, but with these words in his ears: "Grieve not if your searching circles." Miss Clark's skill as a story teller, as interpreter of Indian feelings, mountain feelings, dramatic contrasts between the age of Inca civilization and the newness of the modern world, are put to much better use at this age level than at the younger, though her marked immersion in the genre, the interpolation of Incan songs and myths, the whole idyllic quality, may still be a bit hard to take.