This story of the growing-up years of a girl’s life, of her successes and failures, her joys and heartbreaks, has both strength and charm. 

When Janet Laidlaw was a small girl, her father gave her a silver pencil. “For your stories,” he said. The pencil symbolizes the writing theme that runs throughout the book, a theme that is interwoven with Janet’s experiences as a teacher, and her own developing personality.

The book is unusual in its material and its colorful, changing background. There is the tropical island of Trinidad and the white house on the hill where Janet spent her childhood. There is the English school; the countryside; London, “a fairy tale in gray”; the heather hills of Scotland. “Threshold of America” brings Janet to a new country, where she trains as a teacher and goes to college. Most vital and important of all are her impressions of America. She sees this country first with the eyes of a puzzled stranger, then with the eyes of one who has decided that it is her home and her country.

From the dust jacket