The Angel Inside Went Sour

Just before that late bell rings... "A Mexican movie star's red Jaguar draws up to the Livingston School and out steps his fifteen-year0old protege, Miss Boom Bang...known to us as Nilda, girl student, late-morning comer, sleeper-in-classes. Delicate Miriam...walks and dresses as if she worked at Vogue. Muriel (says) Matter-of-factly, 'I was absent yesterday because my mother died.' Vena isn't absent at all the day of her mother's funeral. Neither is Nita, whose mother is being arrested for murder. Lucy, undernourished, undersized, barely above a whisper weeps, 'I tried to kill myself this morning.' Leonore spends every cent she can earn on heroin for her month because 'God, who else but me can help her?'" The author describes her experiences as principal of the Livingston School for Girls (New York City) which was created for delinquent adolescents suspended from regular schools. Using specific incidents and personal interpretations, the author discusses the policy and objectives of the school through descriptions of the girls themselves, curriculum planning, the work study program, methods of orientation, discipline concerns, and urgent recommendations for future needs. The therapeutic approach of Dr. Rothman and her staff is indicated throughout the narrative as composed of concern for the self esteem, personal adjustment, and individual responsibility for the disadvantaged teen-age girls.