THE SUITCASE KID

When ten-year-old Andrea's parents divorce, the family counselor asks her if she wants to live in House A with her mother or in House B with her father. Andy chooses House C, their old house, with both parents, but settles for shuttling back and forth. To make matters worse, her parents have remarried, so Andy must contend with five brothers and sisters. At her mother's she shares a room with spoiled Katie. At her father's she doesn't even have a real bed, and her stepmother is pregnant. Andy's only solace is Radish, a toy rabbit who lives in her pocket. Andy's troubles reach crisis proportions when she loses Radish in a garden they've discovered. An emotionally satisfying conclusion and a convincing protagonistplus Radish, who occasionally indulges in scene- stealingare the highlights of this book, which comes with nagging sense of the author's hand at work. Andy's parents' self-absorbed squabbling and borderline negligence (when she has an obvious case of the flu, her father insists she is ``playacting'') are hard to believe, and Wilson (Elsa, Star of the Shelter!, 1996, etc.) occasionally allows an older, more sophisticated voice to intrude. (Fiction. 8-12)