The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Fiction - 3.5 stars - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the story of a progressive Scottish school teacher who takes a group of young girls under her wing, makes them an exclusive and judgemental clique, and who eventually is betrayed by one of them. While Muriel Spark paints a good picture of 1930's Scottish education and of a small part of Edinburgh society, her scope in the book is limited to that, much as the scope of Miss Brodie's students was limited to her view. It was a very short, decent book, and I did enjoy reading it. It does, however, depict the somewhat sad existence of spinster school teachers and the lengths they sometimes go to in order to be accepted, and it left me somewhat melancholy.