JOHNNY TREMAIN

This is delightful reading, but at the close it seems to leave less sense of substance and permanence than her best work (Paradise and Paul Revere), but to me it was more satisfying than The General's Lady or Mirror for Witches. Once again she has tapped the rich vein of Boston of the verge of Revolution, the Boston of Paul Revere's time. Once again she has made the drama of that period come alive, this time through the story of Johnny Tremain, youthful and cocky apprentice to a silversmith, who loses the use of his right hand in an accident -- and has to be virtually reborn. In this process, his friendship with a printer's lad, his work connected with the first formting of the pattern of revolution, his contacts with the great men of Boston of those troubled days -- all play a part. The story is slight -- the romance slighter -- but there is ample incident to carry one along. Plus sale for young people.....She can write, this Esther Forbes.