WHERE ARE YOU, ANGELA VON HAUPTMANN, NOW THAT I NEED YOU?

A red-haired, non-stop talker, Angela Von Hauptmann comes to Woody's seventh-grade class in the spring of 1939 and she leaves when the school year ends. Meanwhile she has coached Woody and another class reject, Ben, in serendipity, dancing, and discus-throwing (thanks to Angela, both boys shine at Field Day) and has also transformed shy, smelly Madeline Fisher into an acceptable member of the group. Mysterious Angels won't let anyone see her home; she says she has no mother; and she's forever quoting her father, who never shows up. Because of her German name Woody's father and others in town suspect her of being a Nazi, but her first name combined with other clues which Williams drops--for starters, Angela keeps counseling the boys to have faith; she has foreknowledge of the gym teacher's secret field day event; and she correctly predicts that Woody will deny her three times at the event--suggest a supernatural identity that the trivial goings-on and stereotyped characterizations can't support. A regrettable combination of the light-weight and the heavy-handed.