MEAN STREAK

This installment about ``The Kids From Kennedy Middle School'' features nasty sixth-grader Veronica Volner, whose family life is not the spun-sugar vision she shares with her contemporaries. Veronica's divorced father is seriously ga-ga over a new girlfriend; after classmate Gretchen discovers and reveals the depths of Veronica's unhappiness, Veronica's revenge is precise: she humiliates Gretchen and an unrequited love- interest named Billy in one drawn-out prank. The final paragraph leaves the question of Veronica's mean streak unresolved—maybe she'll change (readers can finish the thought: maybe she won't). A pivotal interview with the father's girlfriend is hastily narrated, though the book has built to that scene from the outset, and Veronica's sudden last-minute insights seem less than sincere; still, every other character here is both believable and fully realized. (Fiction. 9+)