Dear Shrink

Their botanist parents' trip to study the Amazon jungle results in pain and separation for three children who have previously taken comfortable middle-class security for granted. The story is told by the middle child, first as a quite amusing account of having elderly Mrs Bartle in loco parentis then, after her death, in the form of Anne Frank-type letters. Addressed to Mr Jung (see title), these give Oliver a way to express his desperate unhappiness as he and small Lucy spend time with truly awful foster parents and in a children's home. Oliver Saxon is intelligent, articulate and suffering in many ways - lonely, frightened, tormented at school, worried about his sister, confronted with strangers and strange situations. The book is compelling, direct, often funny and worth recommending to teenagers. I feel the ending is rather overloaded with incident and the denouement has to be predictable. The family house is wrecked by a boy from the Home; the Saxon children run away, taking another boy in care with them; but Mum and Dad suddenly return and after broken limbs, blizzards and a helicopter rescue, the story ends with a happy Christmas. Should appeal to fairly bright teenagers.