PENNY'S ACRES

Sensitive, searching stories for teen-agers have become Mina Lewiton's trade mark with books like First Love (1952) and The Divided Heart (1946). Her writing is colorful, springlike in its tenderness and quite expressive of the ups and downs young people feel as they go from innocence to experience, and learn to solve valid problems of work and love. In this story Penny Rowan is a New England girl whose roots go deep in Evergood County where the Rowans have lived for generations but where they are no longer wealthy. Part of their land has been sold and Penny's grandfather bears a grudge against a city family, the Haydens, who have acquired and built on their former estate. Ponny feels this deeply, but as she graduates from high school, at the head of her class in English Composition where she has had the friendship and encouragement of her teacher, Anthony Olliver, she meets another set of problems. First she encounters the Hayden's daughter Alix, who has a painful speech defect. Then Randy, a fine musician and a boy Penny is not sure about, meets Alix too and a common love for music puts a remarkable stop to Alix's stuttering- despite the fact that Randy is as vacillating in his affections as he is in his life aims. In trying to understand and help them both, Penny's aid comes from Anthony, who tells her something more of himself, of growing up and the spiritual rewards of a writer's occupation which Penny has already begun to realize. The land problem too, is solved with the introduction of handcraft industries to the community and for all, there is a more solid and still open future.