ADAM BOOKOUT

The kind of book this is, it just happens for a long time before the Message. Like you don't think about Adam cing a WASP, and his first friend in Brooklyn, Saul, being a Jew, and the next, Willie, a Negro, and the three of them annexing a Puerto Rican girl, Magdalena--a regular fellowship poster only you don't see it until there's a picture of them walking down the street. They're heading for a H.R.T.F. meeting--meaning Honey Recovery Task Force, Honey being Willie's dog who's lost or stolen. Only it turns out she's not exactly either, she's been borrowed by Hank Wilmot and his friend Jerry who go to private school and shoplift just for thrills because Hank's father never listens to him. This is where it gets sticky. But Hank shows he can take it when his father finds out and Adam figures if Hank can take it, he can too so he goes back to Oklahoma where Auntie May misses him and she does understand sometimes and buys him a dog. There's lots more that Adam tells his friend Beecy (for Beverly Carr but ""you needn't whistle, she only helped me buy my plane ticket"") in long letters like this and most of it is just right for Sharing Our Emotions from a book like they do in Adam's class. Even the end would be all right if they didn't make such a fuss about it.