DEFINING DULCIE

Dulcie’s dad and grandfather were the school janitors in her Connecticut town, until her dad died in a chemical accident. Suddenly her mom decides to move and takes Dulcie to California. Wanting desperately not to leave what she knows, Dulcie takes her father’s truck that her mother was about to sell and drives back to her grandfather’s, sending her mom postcards from odd destinations across the country. When she returns as her grandfather’s unpaid assistant for the summer, she meets his new junior assistant, Roxanne, who loves cleaning and hates being at home for a reason that will reveal itself in order to make everything else work out. And that it does, though with a not-too-convincing ease. None of the characters quite resolve themselves into full-fledged people and there is a little too much storyline, but often the dialogue is very funny. As a newcomer, Acampora is one to watch. The girls are spunky but oddly genderless, and Grandpa Frank is too wise and too patient to be believed, but teens who want to think of themselves as capable of self-sufficiency will connect to Dulcie and her independent attitude. (Fiction. YA)