HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE

This first novel moves slowly as Laurel, entering the sixth grade, tries to solve two puzzles. Just what happened to a beloved climbing tree, cut down after new neighbors moved in? And is David Holyfield, the boy in that family, fully human? First, David, a blank-faced computer whiz who moves like a robot, tells her, "The computer is part of me," and then, when Laurel asks his sister, Roberta, what David meant, Roberta answers, "That is not really my brother"—so could it be that David is part computer? Laurel's search for David's supposed secret involves much computer work and befriending Roberta, which brings ostracism from friends whose loyalties are, in sixth grade fashion, already vacillating. Lynch's language is often striking and she shines in portraying eccentrics, not just David but also Laurel's sister, Jeanie. A precocious seven-year-old, Jeanie speaks "Turbish" and pretends she has a TV inside her head ("Shush!," Jeanie says. "There's something on the Balloon Channel right now.... A special. About the Balloon Planet"), and she steals every scene she is in. But the author is less successful with Laurel (who expresses her desire to be a better person by aiming "to be the kind of kid who... who'd stand up to Nazis—yes, Nazis"), and Laurel's preoccupations—with David and with the old tree, which turns out to have rotted away—do not seem sufficiently lifelike to fully engage the audience. Ages 9-13. (Aug.)