Kailey, the likable if naïve 10-year-old narrator of Koss's (The Girls) one-note novel, loves exploring tide pools and boogie boarding with her best friend on the California coast. When plans for a new resort spell the destruction of the tide pools, the ever-optimistic Kailey organizes an "art protest," hoping to change the developer's plans. That a pre-teen manages to change the course of big business in only a few days, when organized efforts by adults have failed, strains credibility. Relationships between characters seem contrived and serve convenient ends (the chairperson of the project is the son-in-law of the favorite waitress at a local diner; Kailey's mother is a marine biologist). Admirers of Koss's insightful probings of the middle-school psyche may be disappointed in the cursory effort here. Ages 8-up. (Sept.)
