PRAY LOVE, REMEMBER

Once again Mary Stolz gives an authentic picture of a small town girl and the life she feels she must escape in an unflagging search for the values of human understanding. Dody Jenks of Plattstown, smart, trim, vivacious, is the kind of girl who can be voted High School Snow Queen, and yet forego dates for study, and accepted mannerisms for honest relationships with people. She clashes with her family, because, though poor, they are social climbers. She takes a baby-sitting job, only to have the young parents come home drunk and quarreling over her pay. She fights with a boor of a brother who has moved his family into an already crowded household. Then while acting as governess in a rich Oyster Bay family, she meets a Jewish boy, Simon Roth, who has come to terms with life, asking only what the present offers, and giving of himself in richness of understanding. Their love declared, Simon is killed and Dody has to go on alone with the spiritual values he has given her as her key to self-fulfillment. Thoroughly adult and constructive, this sort of book can take root in young people's consciousness and achieve a measure of good. Sound realism.