OH, THOSE HARPER GIRLS!

Stand back! The six Harper sisters—March, April, May, June, July, and Lily, the youngest—set out to pay off their daddy's debts on his broken-down South Texas ranch. After abortive attempts at cattle-rustling and making moonshine to ``dissipate the Yankees'' stationed nearby, they settle on robbing a stagecoach; that and the subsequent trial earn them national notoriety—plus an invitation to reenact the drama on stage in New York. Though there isn't quite the privation or danger here that made Karr's It Ain't Always Easy (1990) such an emotional roller-coaster (well, the sisters do foil a bank robbery), there's plenty of high-spirited comedy, a nonstop pace, and—best of all—an enterprising young cast that surely knows how to get its way. A happy, rip-roaring adventure, capped by a whirlwind of marriages, family reunions, and wishes fulfilled. (Fiction. 11-14)