Troubled children need all the help they can get, and this collection of papers and lectures by Dr. Allen spans thirty years and is a progress report. It traces the development of Child Guidance Clinics, focuses upon child and family, moves to social welfare agencies, to the psychotherapist, the teacher, the pediatrician. The emphasis is always on the ""interwovenness"" necessary between the various services and there are specific suggestions toward further helping both family and schools. It is remarkably free from psychiatric jargon, and so positive that the word guilt is never used and aggression is equated with life and vitality in the child. Dr. Allen urges both a broader social base and balance- ""orientation to the present"" rather than too much probing into the past. He also suggests that therapists too often focus upon the parental background instead of accepting the fact that the child may have problems of his own. The chapters jump back and forth in time, case histories are repeated, but the book is characterized by concern, long experience and a sense of proportion. It will be more illuminating for those with little or no background in the field; others will find it chiefly useful as a review of what has been and can be done.