cover image Will Lithuania Comstock Please Come to the Courtesy Phone?

Will Lithuania Comstock Please Come to the Courtesy Phone?

Marcia Savin. Bridgewater Books, $13.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-8167-3324-8

On the way to the airport with her parents, Angie is not at all happy. Her mother is taking her father on a week-long cruise (to help him recover from an apparently mild nervous breakdown), and the 11-year-old is bound for St. Louis, where she'll stay with her aunt and three detested cousins. But in the first of a string of unlikely occurrences, Angie sneaks off her plane before it leaves the gate and resolves to spend the week at the airport. She then sends her aunt a telegram, allegedly from her mother, announcing that Angie cannot come since she has poison ivy. Given the limited setting and sluggish pace, readers are likely to find Angie's daily routine of visiting shops, deciding what to eat and avoiding the security guards rather tedious, while Angie's blend of ingenuousness and cunning is simply unconvincing. To add momentum, Savin ( The Moon Bridge ) introduces the eccentric Val, the daughter of a waitress in an airport restaurant. Left to roam about by herself every day while her mother works, Val draws Angie into a fantasy game that gets them both into hot water with airport officials. Unfortunately this story line--and the novel as a whole--is too farfetched to involve the reader. Ages 10-14. (Apr.)