Sundays in August: A Coming-Of-Age Novel

The world of 10-year-old Petey Caviness in this bittersweet, sentimental debut, consists of the usual terrors and triumphs of childhood: evading the neighborhood bully, rooting for the Yankees and fishing with his dad. But the lives of Petey and his three siblings change irrevocably when their father succumbs to a heart attack. The next day their ailing mother dies under mysterious circumstances, and their only living relative, a nefarious uncle, starts scheming to cheat them out of their inheritance, the family home. Luckily, a sympathetic neighbor takes them under her wing and enlists the aid of a kind-hearted Latino lawyer and his generous wife. Set in western Colorado during the early 1960s, this amateurish but sincere depiction of childhood's wonder and helplessness may appeal to baby boomers who nourish affection for the ephemera of the day: space shots, pennant races and Wagon Train. (Sept.)