ARE YOU FLYING, CHARLIE DUNCAN?

Tongue-tied Charlie's a loner who doesn't realize that most of the guys on his soccer team like him—it's only bullying team captain Sam who tells lies to get him out of the way. He's also sure that the questions he asks in class, which always seem to result in new homework for everyone, keep him in trouble with his classmates. Charlie's only real friends are balloons; he talks to them, and they answer; he even discovers that he is part balloon and can fly. When he soars off to find a charmingly crusty old balloon friend he knows only as ``Green,'' Charlie learns that he hasn't actually found out much about the balloons—or about other people who might be friends, or even about himself; home again, he confronts Sam and finds he has plenty of allies. The idea of balloons as fanciful friends is imaginative, though the logic of the fantasy here isn't particularly well developed (e.g., these balloons never break) or well integrated into the learning-to- make-friends theme. Still, the dialogue with both balloons and peers is lively and amusing, while the human relationships are nicely on-target. Entertaining and light. (Fiction. 8-11)