THE PRIVATE NOTEBOOK OF KATIE ROBERTS, AGE 11
by Amy Hest & illustrated by Sonja Lamut
A hearty look at city girl making a new home on the range. This sequel begins in 1947 where Love You, Soldier (1991) left off. Katie and her widowed mother arrive in Texas from New York City to begin new lives with Sam Gold, a veteran unscathed by the war that claimed Katie's father four years earlier. In the pages of the diary are the ups and downs of a young girl's adjustment to her stepfather, new home, new school, and, just as she is beginning to settle in, the wrenching news that her mother is pregnant. Katie plans to run away to New York City with a classmate and nearly succeeds before being intercepted, to her mingled relief and fury. Hest has dealt with the stepparent-and-new-baby theme in Where in the World Is the Perfect Family? (1989); the immediacy of the diary format makes her latest effort even more effective. The pages are decorated with ``Katie's'' childish drawings and Lamut's trompe l'oeil illustrations of b&w snapshots slipped into the leaves. Today's 11-year-olds may find Katie unsophisticated, but she is totally convincing in the '40s setting. The ending, as she falls head-over-heels in love with her twin baby brothers and accepts Sam's wish to adopt her, further illustrates the theme of the first book: love is risky, but worth it. (Fiction. 8-11)