BLACK-EYED SUZIE

Mental illness is movingly portrayed in this first novel. Twelve-year-old Suzie has become nearly catatonic; she cannot eat, sleep, or talk, but spends her days hunched in a chair. Only in this position does she feel safe from her mother's wrath. A concerned uncle sees her in this state and gets her into a mental hospital, where, with the help of empathetic caregivers and an excellent therapist, she finds the courage to talk about her mother's physical abuse. Short, diarylike episodes immerse the reader in Suzie's worlds, both her real world of physical and verbal abuse and the seductive, cocoonlike fantasy world she embraces to escape her mother.