THAMES DOESN'T RHYME WITH JAMES

Teenage Kendra Kaye and her family fly to London for Christmas, where they'll see dreamboat Frank Lee, her family's summer house guest in New York in Remember Me to Harold Square (1987). As in the previous book, the kids are sent off on elaborate scavenger hunts, designed by their parents to help them explore the city. Presumably the hunt is also meant to keep the young lovers from getting involved, since Kendra's ten-year-old brother, O.K., is required to tag along (as well as two young English kids, Colin and Emma, the children of Kendra's aunt's fiance). This cumbersome plot device gets scuttled towards the end, when the kids rebel and refuse to collect any more trivia; Kendra's overprotective parents finally grant her some freedom, acknowledging her maturity. While veteran author Danziger zeroes in on certain abiding adolescent worries, this book doesn't address deeper issues, and her zippy, one-liners start to grate on the nerves. Kendra and Frank yearn to be together and steal a lot of kisses, but their relationship doesn't go anywhere; at one point, Kendra is put off by Frank's oafish behavior, but this promising conflict gets dropped. The YA equivalent of popcorn: After an hour, you'll forget you ever read it. (Fiction. 10-14)