DINAH FOREVER
by Claudia Mills
Dinah goes cosmic. Mills's forthright heroine, last seen in Dinah in Love (1993) gets some perspective on her role in the universe when her seventh-grade science teacher informs the class that the sun will die in five billion years, taking the earth with it. This knowledge hits Dinah hard: If she can't count on eternity, what can she count on? Why bother to recycle or run for class president? The quiet friendship she enjoys with an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Briscoe, sustains her, as do the moments between breakups with boyfriend Nick. It's Mrs. Briscoe's sudden death that paradoxically restores Dinah's faith in the meaning of life. Dinah grapples with the Big Questions in authentic seventh- grade style: with plenty of humor and pathos. Her stormy relationship with Nick is particularly realistic; readers who have met Dinah before know that this girl will never take a backseat to her boyfriend. Her story is sensitively told and a pleasure to read. (Fiction. 8-12)