Good Bye Pink Pig

Adler's new novel ranks with her earlier works, including The Magic of the Glits, as a moving and many-faceted story about extremely well-created characters. Amanda Bickett, 10, relies on Pink Piga tiny carving in rose quartzfor understanding companionship. Her brother Dale is loving and attentive but much older than Amanda. He's the apple of his snobbish mother's eye; Mrs. Bickett pins hopes for status on Dale's anticipated collegiate triumphs and she's distanced from her daughter, so much like her late father, timid and weak. Amanda's conviction that Pink Pig is alive takes her, fugue-like, into its Little World where she dares to confront the wizard that's destroying the miniatures in her collection. Encouraged by besting the wicked one, Amanda becomes friendly with Pearly, the elderly janitor at school, whom the girl's mother had forbidden her to recognize. Pearly is grandmother to Amanda and Dale but their mother had never admitted ties to the ""common woman.'' She turns out, however, to be an uncommon help to her grandchildren when Mrs. Bickett's warped viewpoint causes more trouble in real life than Amanda's escapes into the Little World. This is not a happy-ever-after ending; it's the promise of better days for those who have learned to cope and have gained a sense of values. (1013)