EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Impressionistic, elliptical and full of feeling, this story about an overwhelmed youngster valiantly trying to cope with her mother’s deep depression unfolds slowly, until readers finally grasp the terrible truth of the event that caused the breakdown of her once-functional family. Mazzy is trapped in a nightmare of guilt and helplessness. Her sportscaster father is off pursuing fame and fortune, leaving Mazzy stranded in the family’s increasingly disorganized home with her nearly catatonic mother. Neighbors make sporadic efforts to help, but Mazzy, who is fiercely protective of her wounded-bird mom, once a talented artist and art teacher, does her best to hide the increasingly dire situation. Narrated in the first person, this tough but tender story gives a skewed child’s-eye view of the situation. Although readers understand more than Mazzy, who begins creating her own artwork as an emotional release, much is left ambiguous, particularly the motivations of her otherwise engaged father. What Ellis makes crystal-clear is how the tsunami of mental illness can devastate everybody in its wake. (Fiction. 12 & up)