WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT DAVID?

When David, 11, hears one of his parents voicing the title's question during a bitter discussion of their separate vacation plans, he's understandably hurt at being considered little more than an inconvenience. The plot in this unvarnished problem novel follows an unsurprising course—dropped off with his wise grandmother in a tiny seaside town, David meets local young people who have their own problems, writes therapeutic stories as he worries about whether his parents are planning to divorce, and repairs his self-esteem by finding friends and rescuing a toddler from the ocean. David's parents are definitely the villains here, especially his moody, career-driven mother, who has no understanding of or interest in her son's internal life. Readers who also feel like afterthoughts will find David a kindred soul; but though Roberts makes some platitudinous observations (``One time or another, most of us feel...caught up in things we can't control''), her actual solution is hardly feasible: when his parents finally come for him, David firmly tells them to go away and settle their marital problems first. Useful, perhaps, but simplistic. (Fiction. 10-13)