True To Form

May 20, 2002
Berg is the master of the soft-focus, nonconfrontational women's novel, as evidenced in her 2000 Oprah Book Club selection, Open House. In her latest work, which again features the pubescent narrator first encountered in her debut novel, Durable Goods, she describes a summer in the life of 13-year-old Katie Nash. It is 1961, and Katie's mother has been dead for two years; Katie lives with her dour military father and peppy stepmother in Missouri. Resigned to allowing her strict dad to find her summer jobs, in her free time she gorges herself on junk food with her best friend, Cynthia, and works on her tan. Katie's first-person voice is deliberative and colloquial, and the story told is rarely eventful: the highlights come when Katie first starts working for a kind, needy elderly couple, the Randolphs, and wins a radio contest offering a free plane ticket anywhere in the world. Yet where does Katie choose to fly? Back to Fort Hood, Tex., where she last lived before her mother died and where she can revisit her former best friend, Cherylanne, who is slightly older than Katie and well versed in the ways of boys, clothes and getting married fast. The trip peters out when Katie realizes she really has nothing in common with boy-crazy Cherylanne. Meanwhile, Mr. Randolph secures a scholarship for Katie at the upscale school where he once taught, but even this boon becomes a hurdle when Katie belittles Cynthia to land in the rich girls' good graces. Berg lays nostalgia traps at every turn in her 10th feel-good novel, but her readers for the most part will be happy to fall into them. 14-city author tour.

February 15, 2002
Teenaged Katie is having a hard time sorting out friendships when she moves from Texas to Missouri after her mother's death.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2002
Berg sets her new book in the summer of 1961, sandwiched between events portrayed in "Durable Goods" (1993)" "and "Joy School" (1997). Thirteen-year-old Katie hopes for something more glamorous to do than the jobs arranged by her dad--baby-sitting for the three Wexler boys and helping old Mr. Randolph take care of his sick wife. Even worse, her friend Cynthia's mother has decided to become a Girl Scout leader, and for Cynthia's sake, Katie joins in on the decidedly uncool scouting activities. But things aren't all bad. First, Katie enters a radio contest and wins a free trip to Texas, where her family lived before her mother died and where she has a reunion with best friend Cherylanne. Then, with the Randolphs' help, she is accepted at the prestigious Bartlett School for the coming year. Nothing turns out quite as Katie expects. Her jobs, especially with the Randolphs, are rewarding in surprising ways. On the other hand, the Texas trip is a letdown, and worst of all, Katie betrays Cynthia in order to be accepted by the girls in her new school. Berg presents an engaging portrait of a sensitive and receptive adolescent in the midst of self-discovery. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)