Emily Cheney Neville

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Margery Fisher

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Of [Natalie Savage Carlson's The Empty Schoolhouse, Bella Rodman's Lions in the Way, and Berries Goodman], each pleading for tolerance, Berries Goodman seems to me the best balanced. The well-to-do suburb of Olcott does not care for Jews and forces them, by subtle pressure, to live a separate social life…. [Racial] antagonism is the cause of action, not the motive for the book. When Berries and Sidney are separated we see family relationships laid bare—the stupid power exercised by Sandra's parents, the appalling powerlessness of children to direct their lives or understand their parents' direction of them. All this emerges as Berries tells the story five years later, a little wiser but still leaving the reader to discover depths in the story for himself. Clever, witty, generous—the book is also, unobtrusively, very wise. (p. 836)

Margery Fisher, in her Growing Point, January, 1967.

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