BEGINNINGS

Beginnings, the occasionally bright beginnings of just seventeen-year-old Susanna Juliusburger, has at best a certain pert, impromptu gee-whiz kid appeal only now of course it's wow or yuck. As told by Sana who spends a summer in England -- she's fourteen -- with her very close brother Nat (still he's no Zooey to her Franny -- publisher hopes aside) and the much younger Nick and their smashing, swinging parents Maa and Paa. They're staying with their old friend Christopher who seems to have been an inseparable third before their marriage and Fab, Sana's new friend, is the first to spot the singular ongoing relationship. Still Sana is mostly thinking about Fab -- he has a Cockney accent thicker than that fog but seems very well-educated and given to remarks like ""you're a regular Foresight Saga,"" and he sells ""veg"" and holds a paint-in. Not too much else happens beyond the final ""delicious"" discovery about Maa and Paa and Christopher -- it's really a precious (precocious) little story and perhaps (it will also be sold on the juvenile list) youth may speak to youth. However, as Elizabeth Bowen once said and then went on to prove otherwise -- ""Very young people are true but not resounding instruments.