CALLING FOR ISABEL

A casualty in the trend to treat teen-age problems on an adult level -- a trend happily gaining popularity. There is a yawning pitfall, a temptation to superimpose an adult perspective and adult thought patterns upon the characters and situations, which results in a synthetic and somewhat jaded atmosphere. Such is the case in this story of Isabel Taylor, 16 year old high school student. Isabel is faced with the usual teen-age problems --romance, choice of careers, and family troubles, but Isabel is hardly a typical teen-ager. Her swains, permanent and temporary, throw themselves into manly grief at being abandoned by burying themselves in work, or are loquaciously noble; Isabel's love for books (there is little evidence that she opens them or gains thereby) prompts her to pursue library work in spite of the objections of her wealthy and socially conscious mother; she becomes involved in the problems of brilliant brother George who is carousing himself out of the university, and the psychological problems of her sisters, identical twins. Isabel handles the boys with a feline consciousness of her element (""lights, orchids and soft music""), the call of the library fades but remains constant, and Isabel straightens out George with the help of her father and the admonition to ""find God"". Too much purple and fine linen, high powered male-female relationships and drum pounding for the general.