ESCAPING TORNADO SEASON

Using the increasingly popular free-verse format for her first novel, Williams turns the internal monologue of a sad 13-year-old girl into a painful soliloquy. Allie has lived a life filled with sadness: her twin brother, Tuck, died at the age of six and, as the story opens, her beloved father passes away unexpectedly. She has never been close to her mother, who becomes even more detached with her husband's death. Mother and daughter move to Minnesota to stay with her grandparents, a wise and loving grandfather, and a grandmother who can be both loving and vicious ("Don't you even miss your/ brother?' she spits"). There's also a powerful subplot involving an abusive teacher and two Indian students, one of whom also lost a parent and becomes a friend to Allie. Williams ably demonstrates that the biggest emotions can often be best expressed through the leanest of sentences ("I hate school/ and even though I still/ hate my mom/ I wish she would come home"). Her smooth pacing intersperses straightforward narrative with moments of surprising impact, as when Allie tells of the night she was at her father's bedside, when he died. The book is set in the 1960s, but the time frame is largely irrelevant—the themes and situations know no era. Readers who have experienced loss will find tenacious strands of hope woven into Allie's poetry. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)