Callan, Annie. Taf, a novel.

Cricket. 248p. c2001. 0-8126-4933-8. $17.95. JS

A first novel, and a new voice. Callan is Irish, and a poet. She now lives in Oregon and this story about Taf, a young adolescent, is set in the Northwest, from 1915 until about 1918. The narrative reflects Callan's gift for choosing words and enjoying the flow of each sentence and paragraph, with words and phrases packed into every page. This is definitely a choice for YAs who love to talk and listen, who love words, poetry, expression. But there isn't a thing about this book that is sentimental or flowery: Taf's life is full of sorrow and adventure, love, friendship--life itself. The novel begins with a scene of horror in Taf's family. As she baby-sits her little twin brothers while her mother and stepfather fight in their bedroom, she accidentally drops one little boy and thinks that she has killed him. Her fear of her stepfather's rage and her guilt cause her to start running--presumably to find her father in a faraway town. And so her adventures begin. Kind strangers help her, but she keeps moving on. When she gets to Pendleton, Oregon, she meets a young man and falls in love with him. His mother was a Nez Perce Indian and his father was Chinese, so he isn't exactly a well-accepted member of the community, but then, neither is Taf, He is as restless as she and doesn't stay in town, but Taf finds a job taking care of two little girls whose mother is mentally ill. The town policeman wants to marry her and raise the little girls, but that doesn't feel right to Tar, ever restless. The end is unusual, really, at least for a YA novel: "And as we sped along the road, the towering Wallowas behind us, I realized I'd no idea of where we were headed, nor did I care. It was the journey itself that counted."

Taf certainly embraces life--she grabs alcohol to drink whenever she can (until later she swears off it forever); she eventually has sex with the boy she loves; she ends up in jail at one point; she sings in a tavern with older musicians; she rebels against her employer's instructions to keep the mentally ill woman in her care drugged. Really, everything about her life reflects the still-raw unsettled nature of the West early in the 20th century. The close-up photograph (sepia, historical photo) of a young girl's face as the cover art is a good choice. Claire Rosser, KLIATT