SNOWBOUND IN HIDDEN VALLEY

Holly Wilson has already written two good stories about girls, Deborah Todd and Caroline the Unconquered. Here is the third, marked by a lively but well schooled narrative style and the observations of character which lift it from the ordinary and make it an excellent model for children who are beginning to get their own opinions about life. The scene is Henry's Bend, a small town in Michigan, and the theme, social prejudice that threatens to blame the wrong person for a crime, is ordinary enough. But its handling, through the friendship between Jo Shannon and Onata, a Chippewa Indian girl, is stimulating because it is natural and full of the frank and exciting observations youngsters have about each other and their families at that age.