THE PRETTY SISTER OF JOSE

Burnett published this little-known novella three years after her first novel, the best-selling Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), and long before The Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). The plot is easily summarized: a heartless country beauty moves to the city and spurns a famous bullfighter, realizing her mistake almost too late. Narrator Klein's performance is brilliantly in tune with the tale. Her characters are vividly delineated. She moves with transparent ease from warm and amused narrator to old woman to young one to sensible, unspectacular brother. Preteen girls should dote on this. D.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT 94]