Missing Girls

In this introspective but often convoluted novel set in 1967, Metzger (Ellen's Case) introduces two eighth-graders who feel as lost as the ""missing girls"" they hear about on the news. Ever since her mother's death four years ago, Carrie Schmidt has felt parts of her life slipping away. This year her father has taken a temporary job out of state, and she is living in her Austrian Jewish grandmother's small, dark house in another neighborhood in her native Queens. Memories of her mother are fading too quickly, coming back into focus only in Carrie's dreams. Carrie's desperation to make sense of these dreams draws her to Mona Brockner, an outcast at school, who claims that it is possible to stay awake during sleep. As Carrie spends more and more time at Mona's ""picture-perfect"" house, her desire to become one of the Brockners borders on obsession, even though the dark, disturbing currents of the Brockner household are immediately obvious to the reader. While the girls' discussions of dreams (which take up a good portion of the novel) are interesting in themselves, they feel tipped into the plot, not an organic part of the story. This is true also of tales about Carrie's family history, told by Carrie's grandmother, who survived nine concentration camps, and Angus, a visiting Scotsman who sheltered Carrie's then-teenage mother during WWII. The elements of this novel are full of promise, but, unfortunately, their combination doesn't add up. Ages 10-up. (Feb.)