Geras, Adele. Other echoes.

GERAS, Adele. Other echoes. Random House, David Fickling Books. 144p. c2005. 0-385-75055-2. $15.95. S

Nineteen-year-old Flora is ill; and in her boarding school infirmary she has asked for paper and pen. As she recuperates, she is writing the story of her year in Kampong Aya, Borneo. She and her mother had joined her father there and now years later, Flora writes her memoirs of the place and the people there.

Ten-year-old Flora is the outsider in this British enclave. She quickly makes friends with a wise eight-year-old who introduces her to the other children and the general makeup of the community. Flora learns of the wartime occupation of the island, the native cock fighting, and the unspoken social dynamics that account for a cook and an amah known only as "cook" and "amah." There is also a bit of a mystery, an abandoned house on the hill where a light comes on in the late evening and a strange old man who sits and plays chess in the local store. Flora is the youngest of the "big ones," the upper grades in the local school, and struggles with the attitudes and interests of the older children. But as the 19-year-old Flora moves through her memories of Kampong Aya, she tells the story of a girl learning to fit in, of finding her own way and of coming to appreciate the role that writing plays in such growth and development. Janis Flint-Ferguson, Assoc. Prof. of English, Gordon College, Wenham, MA

S--Recommended for senior high school students.