THE SECRET OF THE EMERALD STAR

When thirteen-year-old Robin Ward's family moves to an old Staten Island community, she becomes friends with a slightly younger Cuban refugee, Stella, who lives with a domineering grandmother in a neighboring house. An emerald and diamond pin worn by Stella has symbolic meaning for the young girl who has been blind from birth. The girls share an interest in clay sculpture and become involved in an attempt to thwart a thief. In the course of this story, blindness is treated with understanding, rather than pity. Despite the title, there is really little of a mysterious character about the book which is more in the living-successfully-with-a-handicap genre.