A SENSE OF MAGIC

by Kate McNair ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

I am thirteen- almost fourteen- and I am not normal."" This is Alice Ann speaking and she's maladjusted because she's really seriously interested in chemistry and doesn't compensate for her ""insecurities"" by smoking or overeating or----. And frankly her book's not normal as a teen-age story or a boarding school story (viz. the dismal To Each a Season reviewed above). It's gratifyingly superior, jazzy, funny and sometimes serious (""I do not like to hear about adults having problems. It makes me uneasy. The way I feel is that by the time they get old, they ought to know their own answers to things. Otherwise, what is the use of learning so much stuff when you are young?"") Well, this is all about what happens at Worthington Women's Academy during a year: about how they try to create ""love at first awareness"" between Miss Mason, the librarian, and Dr. Kent, their six week ""outside brush with culture"" lecturer; about trying to straighten out Patty who wants to run away, or help old Stanford, who gives classes in ""Purposeful Living"" but hasn't found it that way-- he's an unpublished writer; or help Martha Ellen Simpson, an all A, demerit-free girl-graduate who hasn't made it in the business world-- ""the emerging woman has not quite established her role."" And so it goes-- and most youngsters will be right with it.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Chilton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1965

Categories: FICTION