BARBIE

A must for music lovers. Laurel's cousin Barbie is a twelve-year-old virtuouso violinist staying at the Rectory while her mother takes a Swiss cure and her father travels a world concert circuit to pay for it. Her music, so much a part of her vivacity, gradually comes to dominate the year she spends with them while friends and neighbors are trying to arrange for Vascoletti, a retiring master, to take Barbie on as a student. Laurel knows little about music but she sees that something special happens when those who have it get together, and anyone can watch Barbie transform a room of schoolgirls into dancing excitement; even their chilly housekeeper dissolves in tears when Barbie sets out to win her over. Brother Simon, with the ingenuity of an E. W. Hildick hero, ultimately gets to Vascoletti but Barbie has some weeks of discouraging uneasiness before her future training is assured. With both the abbreviated idiom of trained musicians conversing and the slightly bewildered observations of the uninitiated, Barbie has a special sound and a persuasive traditional arrangement.