FATHER BOB AND HIS BOYS

This is high-hearted and optimistic and while the story is simple, the author's all-lovingness is apparent everywhere-- her omnipresent fingertips tuck in the very ommas with an extra, saccharin stroke. Father Bob, self-described as ""an erring son of St. Francis"", is visited by a dream and directed to create a home for juvenile delinquents. This he does, in 1945, when he opens the St. Francis Home for Boys in Ellsworth, Kansas where he hopes to redeem errant youth with decent treatment. Often the boys go out of their way to defeat Father Bob; there are endless defections; but by the close he has accomplished a great deal... At best a tribute, for the most forebearing of readers.