GREEN DAYS BY THE RIVER

This story of the sad-sweet end of childhood as it overtakes a fifteen-year-old boy from Trinidad has the gentle prelude and final devastation of a tropical storm. Shellie, adoring his seriously ill father, enjoying the soft grace of girls, the lively companionship of boy friends around the village, becomes acquainted with kind Mr. Gidharee, notable for his four huge dogs that accompany him to his cocoa fields and for fathering the cute little ""dougla"" girl (half-Indian, half-Negro) Rosalie. Rosalie arouses Shellie's first real tugs of sentiment and desire, but there is also Joan, from another village. When Shellie's father returns from the hospital, and Joan visits, and Shellie makes his first proposal, it is a happy time. But Shellie and Rosalie had gone too far (""I asked myself why...I was so crazy""), and the terrible events bear down--his father's death, the knowledge of what Mr. Gidharee must know, and finally the attack of his monstrous dogs... Loose at the beginning and understated throughout, this will suit the particular reader but he need not be ""special."" It's island life by an islander and a haunting tale--beg or borrow if you don't buy.