Any man who wants to marry her mother is a creep, Chloris thinks, her bitter resentment recorded by her [eight-year-old] sister Jenny [in Chloris and the Creeps]…. When their mother marries the gentle, patient Fidel Mancha, Chloris is venomous. With great skill, Kin Platt develops the slow, reluctant shedding of Chloris' fantasies about a hero-father and her acceptance of Fidel, whose intelligent sympathy does more to help Chloris than her mother's exasperated love or Jenny's careful allegiance to her sister. While the style is not convincing as that of a child of eight, the fidelity and insight of the author's conception and development far outweigh that one flaw in a moving and realistic story.

Zena Sutherland, in her review of "Chloris and the Creeps," in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press; © 1974 by The University of Chicago), Vol. 27, No...