THE BOY WHO WANTED A FAMILY

A bland little story about Michael, who has spent his seven years in foster homes but is now taken to live with an unmarried woman who writes stories at home and wants to adopt him. (The author has a son she adopted when he was six.) Michael likes his new Mom and makes friends at school and in the neighborhood. His mother gives him a Christmas party; each time the doorbell rings, he hopes it's his two nine-year-old neighbors; and finally it is. Dressed as Superman at a school Halloween carnival, he keeps missing at the games of skill but finally wins a fish. ""I won the best prize of all,"" says Michael at the end of the chapter. "" 'Congratulations, Superman,' said his mother."" These unsuspenseful episodes are accurate echoes of the whole: Michael has to wait a whole year to be legally adopted, and he keeps reminding himself that one prospective adoptive family had changed their minds about taking him; but the adoption becomes final at last without so much as a broken vase or misunderstanding to cause him anxiety. Unobjectionable but weak.