LEAVE IT TO BEANY;

Another story of the charming Malones. Sixteen-year-old Beany, in the midst of a high school romance and diverse energetic family projects, finds that her desire to help people in unorthodox ways leads her into several ridiculous and difficult situations, in which her high school friends, her part-time employer, who runs an advice column in the newspaper, and her cousin Sheila from Ireland figure prominently. The cousin Sheila episodes, concerning the attempts of the Malones to stuff the lonely, glum girl into a pattern of the American Girl, present an amusing and often perceptive study of the iron defense mechanism which may be built up by a girl outside the magic circle of a high school clique. A warm-hearted, very human story.