THE HOPSCOTCH TREE

Fifth-grader Edith Gold finds that the hardest part of adjusting to her new school is withstanding the torments of anti-Semitic Zandra Kott and her gang; but Edith finds solace in whispering her troubles to the immense ``Hopscotch Tree'' on the playground. Whether the tree truly answers her or simply because she uses her own good sense and talent, she also conceives of a way to confront Zandra publicly by adding a verse with a pointed message to the Chanukah song she's performing as a solo at the school ``Christmas'' concert. Edith's narrative is filled with keenly remembered details of the feelings of a girl at the brink of adolescence, and her solutions are naturally arrived at and believable. There is, however, one false note: Edith's constant references to her parents' arguments and hostile silences as ``Uh-Oh'': ``Uh-Oh lasted the rest of the night,'' or ``the Uh-Oh was so heavy I was going to get trapped and crushed by it''—a cutesy shorthand that seems gratingly out of character for the otherwise articulate Edith. (Fiction. 9-12)