WILLOW HILL

Winner of the Youth Today contest- this qualifies as ""the most sensitive realistic treatment of an aspect of contemporary American life and youth problems"". Willow Hill is faced with a government housing project which brings a Negro population, with the all-too-familiar reaction from mob threats, real estate action, school board controversies, women's clubs, the school population, the newspaper and team projects. Individual students, crystalize their own opinions out of the parental and school conflicts. Some very nice people fight it through, with democracy and constitutional ideals winning out. The author has succeeded in making her young people- both white and Negro- live; and reality is added in showing pleasant and unpleasant individuals of both races and factions. There is confusion, slow progress and difficult decision on all sides. Here is a story of young people growing up, taking their places in the world, here are no martyrs, but normal youth with their ambitions and heart throbs along with their social problems. Wide range of interest and appeal, a rattling good story.... The advance publicity the publicity given the award, should give impetus to the sale of this book not only to young people but to their olders as well.