Crazy Vanilla

As in Tunes for a Small Harmonica and The Carnival in My Mind, Wersba writes of an eccentric upper-class family in a state of decline. Tyler Woodruff relates the events that enable him to break away from depressing surroundingshis rigid, emotionless father, his alcoholic motherand his inability to accept his brother's homosexuality. Mitzi Gerrard, whose mother is a freewheeling leftover from the '60s, shares Tyler's love for wildlife photography; she challenges Tyler's ways of thinking. When she moves away, Tyler understandably grieves, but he now can face his father, make amends with his brother and introduce his mother to AA. Mitzi and Tyler never really seem made for one another and their quirky, never-physical love for one another isn't quite believable. Still, Wersba shows, in conversations and actions, the inner workings of the hearts and minds of very contemporary teenagers. (12-up)