EARTH TO MATTHEW

Completing sixth grade, Matthew notices that "everything is getting so complicated...everything around him is changing": older sister Amanda is hostile and rebellious; his parents appear publicly in weird costumes for his mother's message-delivery service. Here, although Matthew's thoughts are still as funny as they were in Everyone Else's Parents Said Yes (1989), his comments and actions are more restrained. He battles with Amanda and classmate Vanessa, but he notices a change in his feelings about girls; he goes on his first date with Jil, but then, during a class trip, peer pressure causes them to quarrel as they struggle to maintain a balance between time together and with others. As sixth grade ends, Matthew "can't wait to see where [Spaceship Earth] takes him next." Beneath the lighthearted surface are messages sure to strike responses from many children. Danziger explains that "ecosystems deal with how one thing affects another"; her book dramatizes the definition in terms of relationships as well as the environment. This third Matthew story stands alone, but will have readers asking for the others. (Fiction. 8-12)