THE LUCKIEST GIRL

A sixteen-year-old girl gains perspective into herself and her family when she leaves her comfortable Oregon home and spends a year visiting with friends in California. Shelley, protected and full of healthy but childish rebellion, is forced to examine herself and the world when, torn from all the familiar situations which she has taken for granted all her life and which have supported her, she is faced with making independent decisions. She learns, in the midst of the friendly Michle family, that there are many ways to be oneself, and many different kinds of love, and in helping a thirteen-year-old pass through a critical stage, she gains confidence and strength. That same balance of humor and understanding, and the calmly affirmative outlook which have distinguished Beverly Cleary's many successful books for younger readers, makes this a teen-age story, a cut above the average.