A FIRST CLASS FUNERAL Sonia Birch-Jones. Lantzville (BC), Oolichan Books, c1983. 158pp, cloth, $16.95 ; paper, $8.95. ISBN 0-88982-062-7 ; 0-88982-058-9. Grades 12 and up Reviewed by Joan McGrath. Volume 12 Number 6 1984 November A First Class Funeral is a first-class collection of theme-related stories, in which little Sarah Rubenstein, the ugly-duckling daughter of ill-matched, glamorous parents, tells the story of a lonely Jewish child's life in Wales during the bleak thirties. Times were hard, and dear Dad's gambling ways made them harder still; Dad was the sort of man who could bet his wife's treasured violin against a really first-class funeral that his best friend would die before midnight. . and collect. In spite of everything, he was such a charmer that everyone forgave him all his transgressions. Everyone except Mother. These wonderful tales bring to glowing life a little world that ceased to be half a century and half a world away. Though described as fiction, A First Class Funeral has the heartbeat of the best of biography. Either way, it is a book to be savoured. Joan McGrath, Toronto Board of Education, Toronto, ON.