LOST CHILDREN OF PARIS

Terneray, a model home for young juvenile delinquents, and wards of the state, is the main setting for this novel of lost children, their parents and friends, and the men and women, dedicated, good and indifferent, who guide their welfare. Centering around Alain, embittered by the discovery that he is an orphan-rejecting angrily his kind foster parents to search fruitlessly for ""real parents"", and Marc, a product of the Paris slums who places loyalty to the gang first, the story shows the slow, often rebuffed, but finally successful methods employed by a compassionate juvenile court magistrate and the teachers at Terneray to rehabilitate these two boys. France has a markedly low juvenile delinquency rate; its lost youth is less vicious in its rebellion than its American counterpart, but fortunately, the novel's theme is universal. A humane and often tender novel, idealistic, liberal and constructive, if not particularly distinguished as literature.