BINGO BROWN AND THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

As pungent and wholesome as the gingersnaps whose smell reminds Bingo of Melissa—his girlfriend, who has now moved to Oklahoma—a welcome sequel to The Burning Questions of Bingo Brown (1988). Still in awe of "mixed-sex conversations," Bingo is making new lists, now headed "Trials" (long) and "Triumphs' (chronically blank). He seems to be falling out of love with the absent Melissa; her large, precociously developed friend is pursuing him; worse, his mother is pregnant and has responded to the unexpected interruption of her new career by an irrational retreat to her own mother. In fact, for a while, both Bingo's parents seem to be acting like children, so that Bingo sees himself as suffering adult problems—including the empty-nest syndrome (in reverse), and dreams of drowning in the mainstream of life. Still, like the fifth-grader he really is, "his sympathies were all for himself"—a natural self-absorption later reiterated when he is more interested in answering Melissa's long-awaited letter than in reading it. In a premature shaving venture, Bingo creates a quizzical eyebrow, to his own amusement. Byars' second look at this questing, likable boy is sure to amuse her fans and his.