ALMOST FAMOUS

At ten, Maxine is a girl obsessed. She wants to be a famous inventor and appear on the Phil Donahue Show, the sooner the better; her most important invention will be to help her five-year-old brother, Wat, who has a heart murmur. To achieve her goals, Maxine needs a partner, a teacher, and, of course, a brilliant idea. The story mostly concerns Maxine's successful efforts to persuade mathematically inclined but antisocial classmate Toni to trust her enough to help. Toni would be the perfect partner, except that she's preoccupied with troubles at home. The teacher proves easier, though he insists that the whole class enter the ``Inventions of Children'' contest. In the end, the girls do come up with a great invention, something that will help not only Wat but Toni's grandmother as well. Notable for its portrayal of a devoted sibling relationship, for its characterization of funny, anxious little Wat, and for its climax with a genuinely clever invention, the book also adeptly gives the flavor of a multicultural school frequented by children with great variations in their learning abilities and their home lives. Maxine is a pip. (Fiction. 8-12)