DOES THIS SCHOOL HAVE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?

Another frame-up like the one the same Sam Davidson experienced in This School Is Driving Me Crazy (1975); another white boy/black jazzman tutelage like the one in Jazz Country (1965); and more earnest lectures from such familiar Hentoff cutouts as the wise, compassionate jazzman, the strict but fair and concerned headmaster, and the firm, supportive parents. Transferring to a new high school, Sam befriends impetuous Holmes and shares Holmes' enmity for slimy Saddlefield, the unfortunate son of a Murdoch-like newspaper publisher Hentoff seems to have it in for. Sam also becomes involved in an English-class project, an in-depth study of a senior citizen. Sam chooses Major Kelley, a great horn player who had earlier befriended Sam's own father when Mr. Davidson hung around 52nd Street taking in the jazz. Then non-dope-smoking Sam and Holmes are caught red-handed with two joints Saddlefield has just tossed them in the john. According to school rules, they or he must be expelled. The same bum pot rap has figured in other mediocre YA novels, but Hentoff makes it the focus of the plot—with Kelley saving all three boys by inducing Saddlefield to clear his conscience and make a new, more self-respecting start. Talky, platitudinous, and passe.