A Smart Kid Like You

(thing) by junkpile Tue Nov 07 2000 at 16:47:43

copyright 1975 Stella Pevsner. Clarion Books. intermediate fiction. 216 pgs.


A book with zero character development usually isn't something I'd recommend, but this one ain't bad. Nina is a junior-high kid whose parents have gotten divorced, then remarried and re-boyfriended, respectively. The book's about what you'd expect - young girl deals with conflicting emotions, yada.

But it's done pretty well, else I wouldn't be wasting my time writing it up. True, you don't get much background or development of the characters, which leaves you in the spot of   "do I buy the behavior and words of these people, or do I say THIS SUCKS! and go back to Animorphs?"   I think it's well-done enough to keep any divorce-conscious kid reading, though those from relatively unbroken homes may say to hell with it.

Plot schmot, not a whole lot of actual action occurs, but Nina comes to terms with some difficult issues. It sounds predictable, and I guess it is, but it somehow isn't boring, and might well be helpful to someone going through a similar family crisis. Despite the lack of three-dimensional information on the characters, most of them are interesting anyway, and the language holds true. With one heinous exception. A three-year-old would not, ever, ever say "What shall we play?" Not even in England, Stella.

So, it's not so great, but far from bad. It's gone out of print, and I sort of wish it hadn't.
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