Marjorie Bartholomew Paradis

Midge Bennett - the eponymous heroine of Midge Bennett of Duncan Hall - returns in this sequel, which opens shortly after the events of the earlier book. Although happy to have won the Mary Shenstone Porter scholarship, which will allow her to return to Duncan Hall - her prestigious private boarding school in Massachusetts - the next year, Midge is nevertheless rather blue, as she contemplates the quiet summer vacation, at home in Flatbush, that lies ahead of her. Her consequent joy, when she discovers that her father has inherited a run-down lake house up in Mount Kisko, is great, and she throws herself enthusiastically into the family project of renovating and redecorating this exciting new summer home, while also addressing herself to the problem of her cousin Debby's broken engagement...

Although Midge herself is just as lovable as ever here - down to earth, goodhearted, enthusiastic, and very sincere - and many of the same appealing secondary characters, from the jolly Tin, to the rather snooty Adele, recur in Maid of Honor, I can't say I enjoyed it quite as much as the first installment of Midge's adventures. Somehow the sub-plot involving Debby and Mark's broken engagement was less appealing than might have been expected - perhaps because its cause (when revealed) seemed so silly, and its resolution so pat? - and since it commanded quite a bit of narrative attention, I was somewhat less than charmed. Still, as someone who vacationed near a lake as a girl, I greatly enjoyed the bits about fixing up the cottage, and Midge's adventures on and around the water. Definitely worth a read, for anyone who enjoyed Midge Bennett of Duncan Hall, or who appreciates teen fare from the 1950s, although I can't help but wish that Paradis has returned to the world of Duncan Hall, in her sequel...… (mere)

When Midge Bennett's family contrive to send her to Duncan Hall - the Massachusetts boarding school that her mother attended - the high school sophomore, after an initial period of homesickness and awkward adjustment (the other girls all already knowing one another), soon finds her feet, and discovers that she has become an important part of the life of the school. Despite being a newcomer, and despite being decidedly more middle class than many of the other girls, Midge finds herself elected to the Student Council, and popular with her peers. She also finds a "boy-friend" in Tin (Quentin) Hamilton, attending a boys' prep school nearby, and has many amusing adventures with him, and with her older sister Adele, attending nearby Conway College. But just as Midge comes to truly love her new school, she discovers that she won't be able to stay, her mother having lost the job that has been paying for her tuition. Unless, that is, she can win the Mary Shenstone Porter scholarship...

An enjoyable cream-puff of a story, Midge Bennett at Duncan Hall features a winsome heroine - friendly but plain-spoken, kind-hearted and utterly lacking in any snobbery - that is the epitome of "girl-next-door" appeal, and an engaging set of secondary characters, from the silly and rather snooty Adele, who has a good heart underneath it all, to the jolly Tin, always ready to take Midge's part, while also seeing the humor in her various predicaments. The school setting is fun, but so are the various holidays adventures - the ski trip to New Hampshire, the Christmas and Easter visits with the Bennett family in Brooklyn - and although there is the tension of Midge's impending departure from Duncan Hall, so soon after she has come to love it, the reader can never really be in much doubt that things will turn out well. This is, after all, a teen novel from the 1950s (published in 1953), and has, in addition to lots of slang from the era, that lighthearted sense of optimism that seems to characterize children's literature from that decade. Recommended to reader looking for American school stories, and to fans of 50s young adult books!… (mere)