Foreign Affairs Study Guide

Virginia ("Vinnie") Miner, a small, plain, unmarried fifty-four year-old professor of children's literature at an Ivy League college, who rejects the idea that plain, aging women must be self-effacing and uncomplaining, boards a daytime charter flight to London, where she will spend six months researching "A Comparative Investigation of the Play-Rhymes of British and American Children." Vinnie, who has made the trip before, knows how to cut through the crowds and settles into a window seat in such a way as to minimize any chance for conversation. (read more)