These charming stories for girls have plot lines which hover around family life, dating and high school in the 1940s. The writing has characteristics reminiscent of two favorite authors: Laura Ingalls Wilder and Hilda Van Stockum. Like the Little House books, the Beany Malone books center around family life (with details of ordinary-life events of the day like cooking and making ice cream) and the main characters are well-meaning, but have identifiable faults which they are capable of learning from. The stories even more closely resemble Hilda Van Stockum's Mitchells series in that the charm of the stories comes partly from their sense of reality - that family life can be harried and happy at the same time, that sticking your neck out for others can hurt sometimes but is still the best thing in the end, and that the "richness" of having friends and family is much greater than material wealth. Although the books fall under the category of lighter reading, the characters have a nice depth and the author's intentions are obvious - helping girls understand the importance of family, the problems of materialism, the dangers of "going steady", and other values that Catholic parents should welcome. The books seem most appropriate for ages 12 or 13 and up. These books are recommended in Catholic Authors: 4-Sight Edition.