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ONE SUMMER IN BETWEEN by Melissa Mather Kirkus Star

ONE SUMMER IN BETWEEN

By

Pub Date: March 15th, 1967
ISBN: 0595093841
Publisher: Harper & Row

Harriet Brown is the sturdiest fictional Negro character to cross the Mason-Dixon line in some time. Unlike the many (and excellent) current novels about the Negro in American society, which arrive to critical appreciation and depart by way of the 25¢ stall, One Summer In Between might just make it with the popular reading audience and will be a first purchase choice among selectors for young adults. Harriet calls up reader admiration rather than pity, and respect rather than guilt; therein lies the major commercial difference. This is her private summer journal. She's an acute observer of herself as well as other people and her tart entries are a pleasure. She came up from Jacob's Ladder Teachers College in South Carolina to a Vermont farm to be the summer help for Mrs. Daley and to be a broadening influence on the six Daley children, who had in previous years experienced a Bennington modern dancer and a Juilliard soprano. Harriet came with a mission. H. Gamaliel Carr, the teacher she had a growing crush on, had charged his students to be Interpreters of their Race and warned them to be non-violent about it. Harriet felt stubbornly violent about many things and, on more than one occasion, decided that her Northern audience wasn't worth interpreting to--especially when some Southern guests arrive. Harriet certainly broadens the Daley experience and grows herself, too. A wonderful girl...a good novel...definite movie appeal.