[The title character of Introducing Shirley Braverman] is a twelve year old growing up amidst air raids, sirens, and Brooklyn, all of which, in their own way, provide Shirley with the means to live up to her name. She manages to smile through World War II by pre-occupying herself with the plight of a friend's older brother who is fighting overseas …, by assuming a patron saint role for an often maligned Theodore, her younger and less intelligent brother …, and by entering a state-wide spelling bee…. And Shirley comes out the winner in all.

The predictability, the not so insurmountable insurmountables, the simple fact that adolescence rarely breeds continual victories ruin what otherwise might have been a viable first attempt at juvenile fiction. The characterizations are strong and credible but the events are not. Today's reader just is not willing to accept happily everafters and fading sunsets. Once more...