TALL AS GREAT STANDING ROCK

Young Navajo meets the 20th century, in this case for the better, in an efficiently told tale full of impressive scenery and apparently first-hand observation of manners and mores on a Navajo Reservation. 14-year-old Kirby lived with his family at Three Mesas and found that the ""white man's"" settlement at Granado was forever reaching into his life. First there was the need to bring his cousin for treatment of a wounded toe; then the enticement of the knowledge of the white doctor who explained white man's medicine to Kirby; and finally the promise of healing the crippled hip of his little sister. Acting as counterpressures, were the teachings of his grandfather, but Kirby doggedly reasons through his conflicts. The ""white man's world"" seems baldly Utopian, but this is a readable, earnest yarn.