NICK OF TIME

With its earnestly wholesome principles, the progressive little school in Alcott, N.H., could have been designed by Bronson Alcott himself; but despite the idealistic pedantry of its founder/headmaster (who prefers the title ``Fugleman''), what goes on among its eight pupils (who are markedly smarter than their ``mentors'' [teachers]) is farce. A simple plot serves as vehicle for the ironic wit of 13-year-old Jericho's narrative: After Nick, a boy from the year 2094, appears, the kids find that they can pass through a height chart on the kitchen wall into his time, where amusingly satirical misconceptions about their school and lifestyle abound. Although this future is no Utopia—it's so crowded that the natural world has virtually disappeared—Alison, whose deadbeat mom proposes to make a career for Alison promoting ``Curly Girl'' (a chain of teen beauty parlors), opts instead for the artificial life of 2094. A lot of the humor here is barbed (the future US has no president because it's become impossible to elect one with any personality); but the story's dark undercurrents make its effervescent humor gleam more brightly: What may be Lindbergh's last book (she died last year) is her funniest. (Fiction. 10-14)