AMY DUNN QUITS SCHOOL
by Susan Shreve & illustrated by Diane de Groat
An overscheduled sixth-grader impulsively plays hooky on Halloween and is found out when her hyperconscientious single mother unexpectedly arrives at school for the Halloween parade. Mother and daughter share some truths they've hidden for fear of hurting each other: Amy doesn't really want all the ``advantages'' her mother's been laboring to provide, and her mother has a gentleman friend. This doesn't have the humor or tight structure of Shreve's earlier ``problem'' novels (The Bad Dreams of a Good Girl, 1982; The Flunking of Joshua T. Bates, 1984); alternating the point of view between Amy and her mother dilutes the focus a bit. Still: a sympathetic view of a child overburdened by a parent's ambitions. The Manhattan setting is particularly well realized. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 9-12)