BLACK ICE by Lorene Cary (Vintage:...

BLACK ICE by Lorene Cary (Vintage: $10). In 1972, Lorene Carey, a bright teen-ager from a middle-class black neighborhood in Philadelphia, entered prestigious St. Paul’s prep school, formerly an all-male, all-white enclave. There she confronted the complicated challenge of achieving academic excellence without sacrificing her ethnic identity or waxing feminist awareness. Although she became an honor student and, later, a teacher and trustee at St. Paul’s, she learned valuable lessons about the shabby nature of racial prejudice through her friendships with white and Asian classmates. Cary’s proud, straightforward memoir offers interesting reading for adults and an inspiration for minority teen-agers in search of role models beyond the familiar athletes and entertainers.