Artie's Brief: The Whole Truth, and Nothing But

Killien's book winningly serves up a dose of good old common sense: you can't always tell the good guys and the bad guys by the color of their hats. Artie blames his father and his new wife for his brother Tom's suicide--Artie believes that no one cared enough to save Tom, who was adopted. In the same time span, Artie goes to work defending Gilbert, a boy he believes is unnecessarily bullied. Instead of uncovering facts to support his two major suppositions, Artie instead learns that the truth is hard to swallow: no one could have saved Tom from himself; and Gilbert is a bigger bully than his alleged tormentor. Carefully mapped out, Artie's ``case'' and his subsequent revelations are drawn from real life and hard to refute. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)