Underdog-Juv

Readers sense Sachs's empathy for young people in The Bear's House, Veronica Ganz and her other unforgettable novels. Here we meet new people the author persuades us to laugh and cry with and sometimes scorn. Isabelle (Izzy) Cummings tells about her life when her father dies and she's rejected by the stepmothers he had married and divorced after the death of his first wife, Izzy's mother. Uncle Harry Cummings arrives to decide Izzy's future and takes her from the East to San Francisco, where his kind but reserved wife tells Izzy she will like boarding school when the next term begins, dashing the orphan's hopes of welcome into a permanent home. Izzy concentrates instead on finding the puppy, Gus, she remembers her father giving away before moving with her to New York, years earlier. The secret mission involves Izzy with strange characters in odd pockets of the city. Like lost Gus, Izzy is an ""underdog,'' passed around instead of loved, but this isn't a sad story. The poignant moments are balanced by very funny incidents and the surprise finale is sheer delight. (912)