SECOND HOEING

A novel of the soil, belonging with the type of book popularized years ago with Giants in the Earth, and paralleling in the year past, Sun on their Shoulders (one of the books that deserved a better break than it got). The setting is Colorado, in the sugar beet section. The central characters are Russian-German-American settlers, crop sharers, tenant farmers, workers in the beet fields, -- a new facet of the American picture. The central character is Hannah, ambitious, responsible girl emerging from adolescence at the start, and growing through the fate she meets, to a shouldering of the problems of life. Good characterization, but it is not a book for light entertainment. Should get a good press, which may create a demand.