Diving for the Moon

Impressively fresh dialogue and spare yet keenly visual description distinguish this portrait of Bird and Josh, best friends since infancy. For both, the months before they enter seventh grade are a time of monumental change despite the stability of their surroundings, the Minnesota lake where their families spend every summer. Bird's mother announces that she is pregnant with a second child, a girl like Bird. Josh, a hemophiliac, tells Bird that he is HIV-positive. Josh's bout with pneumonia, Bird's dilemma about whether she should switch schools so that Josh won't have to face a new school alone and her realization that their relationship is blooming into something more than friendship are some of the tangles in the girl's bittersweet summer. Bantle steers clear of melodrama as his likable characters sort through typical preadolescent quandaries--and try to come to terms with an overwhelmingly sad situation. A perceptive first novel. Ages 9-12. (June)