cover image Enter Tom

Enter Tom

June Oldham. Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, $14.95 (180pp) ISBN 978-0-385-29780-6

Set in the North Country of England, this novel covers a few of the most con fusing weeks of Tom Taylor's young life. Tom is a Sixth Former, gettng ready to apply for college, and his sort- of love story begins when he meets Miss Faulkner, the new physics teach er. He finds himself unable to breathe properly in her presence. It's the kind of crush that renders him unable to do his schoolwork or understand his friends, and it lands him into fix after fix. The plot defies easy encapsulation, but Tom's relationships with his femi nist mother, the little girl he baby-sits and his schoolmates are quirky and engrossing. Oldham's intelligent, fun ny style calls to mind the films of Bill Forsyth (Local Hero) and a lightheart ed K. M. Peyton. Tom's painful pursuit of Miss Faulkner is better than farce-- it's true-blue adolescence and readers of all ages will recognize it with a pang. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)