[Jean Kerr is] not writing about anything new or unusual. In fact, some of the pieces that go to make up [The Snake Has All the Lines] have a definite air of being written to order on a preselected subject. Another casual on being frightened of flying, one thinks, more than fifty years after the Wright brothers' adventure at Kitty Hawk? The heart sinks, the mind boggles. Then Mrs. Kerr remarks, "I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets," and I defy you to stop reading.

Are you convinced that you've read all you ever want to read about try-outs of a new play in Philadelphia? So was I. And double it for a piece on getting the children off to school, the mere thought of which has a depressing effect. Well, if you don't read it, you will miss the implacable logic behind Mrs. Kerr's...