The Fresh Air Kid

Leigh, a street-smart teenager living in a tenement building in the Bronx, spends the summer in suburban Connecticut.

Grade 6-9-- Leigh, 14, leaves the Bronx to spend two weeks with the Bensons, a Fresh Air Fund middle-class family in the suburbs. She encounters the clash of culture and values, experiencing both conflict with other young adults and real family warmth. After a painful and disheartening return to her inner-city neighborhood, Leigh is invited back to the Bensons' to participate in a relay race and then to visit regularly. The potential of this scenario is never effectively managed. Characters' motivations and actions are fuzzily depicted, and the point of view changes so frequently that the book is difficult to read. The greatest weakness, however, is that the novel avoids dealing with the difficulties this visit to an affluent world places on Leigh. She is forced to recognize that her world is harsh and unloving, that her mother and her friends are trapped there, and that she may be trapped as well. A weekend visit to the country once a month seems a shallow and patronizing solution to her problems. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sponsored by the Fresh Air Fund, 14-year-old Leigh leaves her Bronx home to spend two weeks with the Bensons, a wealthy Long Island family. Not only has Leigh never seen such lush trees and bright stars before, but everything about the Bensons' life is different from hers. Mr. and Mrs. Benson are very kind, and the two younger children befriend Leigh almost immediately. However, she and Cindy, also 14, do not get along. Cindy and her friends constantly giggle about boys, while Leigh would rather play basketball or "hang out" with the guys than ogle them. She is eager to go home after her visit, but once there, she realizes she has grown to care about the Bensons. She also learns that very different people can still become friends. Although the novel's first half reads like a TV sitcom script, the story gains credibility as Leigh's relationship with the Bensons develops. Roux-Lough succinctly and poignantly juxtaposes the lives of two teenagers growing up in very different environments. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.