MY NOT-SO-TERRIBLE TIME AT THE HIPPIE HOTEL

In her first novel, Graham chooses a small canvas and fills it with panache. The narrator, 14-year-old Tracy, is having a family vacation of sorts; her dad has brought her, her older brother and her younger sister to Farnsworth House, on Cape Cod, for "Together Time," a summer program for divorced parents and their children. At first Tracy casts a baleful eye on the whole enterprise, beginning with the proprietor, Sharon, a "tie-dye-and-Birkenstock-wearing woman" with waist-long gray hair. A suburbanite, Tracy immediately feels intimidated by Beka, "one of those New York private school girls who's taken so many ballet lessons that she... walks with her feet permanently turned out in second position"; and she's suspicious of Beka's mom, who seems to be flirting with her dad. Berkeley girl Kelsey is much more simpatico, and in Kelsey's wake, Tracy finds herself attracting a charming first boyfriend, Kevin. Graham conjures up the intensity of a few weeks' forced intimacy and lets readers see Tracy at her best and worst. The audience will sympathize with Tracy's gaffes with Kevin, and they'll even understand when Tracy lashes out, unjustifiably and meanly, at easy-going Kelsey. Most of the developments are expected—everyone, from Sharon to Beka, is more complicated than Tracy has assumed, and most of the characters, especially Tracy, experience personal growth. But Graham charts her story with wit and sympathy, and it will be a rare reader who doesn't leave this book wishing for a stay at a real-life "Hippie Hotel." Ages 10-14. (June)