FOR THE RECORD

A distraught 12-year-old makes iffy choices in the midst of an ugly custody battle.

Justine’s emotional turmoil is understandable as she and her little sister, Bea, shuttle between their fun-loving but careless, twice-divorced dad and hyperanxious, controlling, neat freak mom. It’s the latter’s continual codependent demands that lead Justine to think that she has to choose between the two. She makes lists of her dad’s supposed parenting failures in a notebook to pass on to her mother—and finally, when he barely prevents Bea from running out into traffic by grabbing her hard enough to leave bruises, lies about the circumstances, dubbing it a violent incident. That earns a date in family court, which leads to a confession and, if not a tidy resolution, at least a reasonable compromise. Polak offers carefully nonjudgmental portraits of both parents as flawed in different ways (and profoundly incompatible) but loving; neither is the unalloyed bad or good guy. That leaves room to focus on Justine’s emotional landscape, and it’s charting her dawning realization that it’s not her job to be the grown-up that will give this particular value for readers caught in similar breakups. The author includes a perspicacious child lawyer and equally canny judge (both of whom understand exactly what’s going on and properly prioritize the needs of the children) in her evidently all-White cast. She also closes with resources for both children and adults about parental alienation syndrome.

Sad—but frank, supportive, and properly free of easy answers.