NEVER TRUST A SISTER OVER TWELVE

A routine, heavy-handed take on close sisters drifting apart. In a new town and new school, Suki, 10, feels that her friendship with her sister is one of the few things she can count on—until Ginger brings home friends from her own class and decides to go to the Junior High Harvest Dance rather than use the concert tickets Suki bought for her birthday. These characters simply don't behave credibly; when Suki rips up the expensive tickets, her parents sigh patiently; when she appears in school with a homemade haircut, classmates buy her wild story about rescuing a cat in a storm and being singed by lightning. Irony is left behind as the obvious is laid on with a trowel—after Suki brushes off her little brother, ``All I kept wondering was how long it would take him to figure out that sometimes older kids just don't want to hang out with younger ones!'' In the end, the plot takes a twist that even uncritical readers will find artificial: Suki and two friends crash the dance, then refuse a friendly invitation to stay (``This is a party of twelve-year-olds, and we're just not twelve''). Awkward treatment of a well-worked theme. (Fiction. 9-12)