Maynard, Joyce. The Cloud Chamber.

MAYNARD, Joyce. The cloud chamber. Simon & Schuster, Atheneum. 286p. c2005. 0-689-87152-X. $16.95. JS

The novel opens with 14-year-old Nate Chance and his little sister June being met at the school bus stop by police cars. There is a scene of their dad being helped across the pasture, blood streaming down the side of his head. Nate's dad is sent to a mental hospital for attempting suicide, and his mother is harassed for perhaps being the one who really pulled the trigger. The small town of Lonetree, Montana in the late 1960s is not an easy place to deal privately with such a public tragedy; everybody is talking about the family even while avoiding them. Nate becomes friends with classmate Naomi when they are assigned to do the science fair together. Naomi is also on the fringes of town society. The daughter of the town's conservative pastor, she doesn't look like the other kids and lives by a rigid set of standards.

Their science project, a cloud chamber. serves as a focal point and a metaphor for the storm in Nate's life. Designed to show the remnants of radioactivity in the atmosphere, the chamber is a reminder that we cannot see all that is going on around us. In Nate's case, the lack of openness from his mother and the loss of a father he adores are parts of his life that cannot be shared on the outside. What is known is that without adequate income, the family will be required to sell the farm. Before Nate and his sister can put an end to that part of their lives, they take the family car and travel 300 miles to visit their father. These are characters whose outer lives belie inner conflicts, and readers will care about what happens to them. Janis Flint-Ferguson, Assoc. Prof., English, Gordon College, Wenham, MA

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.

S--Recommended for senior high school students.