ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH-ME

With a wry eye, keen pacing, and a wonderfully nimble narrative, the author of Hero of Lesser Causes (1993) stirs up something saucy and fresh from the seasoned material that also animated The Great Gilly Hopkins and Missing May. Sara Moone, in foster care since birth, has grown a stiff, prickly exterior over her first 15 years. Tongue-tied with people, she confides in a computer, the only thing of value she has from her last family. Now Sara lands at the Huddleston's, where Ma never stops talking, Hud rarely starts, and foster brothers Nick and Josh separately beat away at Sara's emotional barricade. Sara, who has learned that ``if you don't want your heart broken, don't let on you have one,'' is subtly seduced into caring for this compelling cast while, on the periphery, her birth mother hopes to ``rectify a mistake'' by seeking the baby she gave up. Josh's sassy innocence reflects what Sara once was, treacherous Nick and the dead-eyed ``Woman'' presage what she might become, but the extraordinary Sara Moone is destined to be none other than herself. (Fiction. 12+)