Checking on the Moon

When their mother leaves to spend the summer in Europe with her new husband, Cab and her brother Bill are sent to live with their grandmother in a run-down Pittsburgh neighborhood called Washco. Cab's job is to help her grandmother run the family diner, which doubles as the area's unofficial meeting hall. Crime is Washco's biggest problem until, galvanized by an ugly rape, its citizens turn to grassroots political activism. Because Davis's ( Good-bye and Keep Cold ) novel deals with a number of issues--Cab's anxieties about the future, her flourishing self-esteem, the changes taking place in Washco--there are moments when the plot seems unwieldy, even melodramatic. But this is more than compensated for by the array of generous, vividly depicted characters. Washco--though it exists only in the imaginations of the author and her readers--is very nearly palpable. Ages 11-up. (Sept.)