Strawberry Hill - Softcover

Set in 1974, LaFaye's (The Year of the Sawdust Man) meandering novel focuses on 12-year-old Raleia Pendel, who is preoccupied by an idyllic view of the past. Spending a summer in Tidal, Maine, a town preserved (as a tourist attraction) to look as it did when hit by a tidal wave in 1911, Raleia feels like a misfit. While she dreams about fancy dress balls, tea parties and proper etiquette, she criticizes her parents' "hippie" behavior and her brother's attraction to slimy creatures and unusual food combinations. Taunted by the neighborhood children, she takes their dare and ventures onto the property of town recluse Ian Rutherford and discovers an unlikely companion. Rebuked by Rutherford, Raleia nevertheless pursues what she believes to be a genteel elder statesman. Through their tenuous friendship, Raleia discovers that his immersion in the past is as unrealistic as her picture of the good old days, when parents spent more time worrying about their children than picketing. LaFaye's minutely detailed descriptions of the setting distract from Raleia's complex emotional drama, and readers may have difficulty understanding Rutherford's erratic behavior. They may also have trouble understanding Raleia's wholesale rejection of her culture. Still, the moving final chapters in which Raleia discovers the truth about Rutherford's situation and draws closer to her family are worth the effort to reach. Ages 8-12. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Two mercurial characters, one 12, the other 88, square off to form a contentious friendship in this multistranded tale from LaFaye (Edith Shay, 1998). Raleia Pendle longs for the imagined simplicity and structure of the olden days, and wouldn't mind conventional parents either: she has six-foot, seven-inch Max and Tiny, two feet shorter and very pregnant, ex-hippies with a parenting style that's entirely too loose, as far as she's concerned. Soon after moving into a summer cottage in Tidal, Maine, named for the great wave that swept over it six decades ago, Raleia meets Ian Rutherford, a total recluse since the death of his wife in the catastrophe. For tart tongues and hot tempers, they're a perfect match, but Ian's so much like a living time capsule that Raleia keeps coming back, to probe into his past and dream of days gone by. Despite occasional fits of wisdom, the adults in the storyespecially Tiny, who lost her previous baby and is emotionally adriftare at least as subject to whims and tantrums as the children; consequently, the plot is replete with tears and laughter. Picking up the nuances of character here will require a close, sensitive reading, and some may feel whip-sawed by the many subplots and sudden rages; still, the ability of Raleia and Ian to laugh at themselves keeps them from being complete termagants, and the Pendles in action are a constant delight. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.