[The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet] is the secret journal of Rachel Sasakian, scribbled after lights out while she crouches in a bathtub at boarding school….

Driven into a corner by the dumb rules of the school, she becomes crafty. Her father, she brags, is Norman Mailer. To escape compulsory chapel she declares herself a convert to Judaism. But the totalitarian pressure of the school mounts until Rachel's resistance is an act of heroism. The book says something true about life: Evil is not diabolical and nasty, but bland and blind. (p. 5)

Jane Langton, in Book World—Chicago Tribune (© 1972 Postrib Corp.), May 7, 1972.

To start with, Rachel's snobbish working-class mother, who saves and borrows to send Rachel to a $4,000-a-year high school with "nice girls from nice families," is just unreal. She's a type rather than an individual but she isn't true to any type, and Ms. Wells'...