Belle Pruitt

When her sunny baby brother dies and her mother, depressed, withdraws from family life, Belle11decides to do something about it: she plants a garden to restore her mother's faith in living things. Set in the poor, semi-rural Florida panhandle, this is familiar Cleaver country. Belle's grown-up, ineffectual siblings squabble while her aunt connives to dominate the household. Meanwhile, Belle, bereft of nurturing, finds unexpected depths of imagination and grit within herself. (At the last, when her mother shows concern for her, she insists, ``I am not hurting.'') The author's penetrating style and her inability to resort to triteness is as intact as ever, and there is integrity in the characters and setting. But these facets don't entirely compensate for a rather diffuse story. Ages 9-12. (September)