TEN MINUS NINE EQUALS JOANIE

A sense of antipathy is generally to be expected among girls and boys of around 4th grade age. Joanie Sanders' feelings, however, seem set on a full scale war between the sexes. What chagrin when she learns that her mother has produced a baby boy instead of the eagerly awaited baby sister, and a little later discovers that the class she is to enter at her new school has nine boys and no other girls. She complains about the situation at length, even though most of her classmates seem to be making an awful lot of fuss over her. When she is at last given the option of changing classes she coyly decides that she really likes being with boys. Boys and girls are categorized throughout the book, and even though Joanie changes her attitude, she still seems to think of boys as a type rather than separate personalities. Joanie herself is rather inconsistently drawn, sometimes seeming very babyish and at others precociously flirtatious. A pedestrian handling of a common problem.