ONE PUPPY, THREE TALES

Only readers who can tackle Marissa Moss's Amelia's Notebook (1995) and its sequels without eyestrain will be comfortable reading this hand-written, neon-colored monologue. Preteen Alexandra details her parents' various failings: Mom, a cabaret singer, is habitually late and prone to such embarrassing behavior as wearing zebra-striped leotards and teaching yoga at a school fundraiser rather than just bringing food like the other moms. Dad, a Senior VP, pays more attention to basketball than to her. The text reads like it was expelled in one breath, and being tucked between and around cartoony pictures, is sometimes hard to follow—or, for that matter, even to decipher. Vanishingly narrow margins and changing background colors of strobe-like intensity give the pages an even busier look. In the end, Alexandra decides that it's better to have an interesting mom, and that even though he never says it, Dad does love her. Trite, semi-legible, and over-designed. (Fiction. 9-11)