I read this when I was a kid and returned to it now. I think I enjoyed it just as much the second time. Reading Blume's writing is like reading my own diaries kept when I was 13 - she has the voice of an adolescent kid just right. She knows what's important to kids and even manages to know what it's like to be a 13 year old boy (I guess). I wonder if she talked to any men about adolescence, or if she had a good sense of it. It's amazing how little this book has dated. Take away mention of the 'colour TV' and it could be set in modern times.

Tony Miliogne is forced to move from his New Jersey town to Rosemont, New York where is father is plant manager for the Fullerbach factory. His father gets the job after inventing and patenting wireless electrical charges. In New York Tony is faced with many changes. His growing adolescence, his mother becoming a socialite, his stealing friend, and his girl neighboor who he is caught spying on. In the end, Tony finds a certain amount of peace as he accepts his life with help of his counselor. He also learns to put up the binoculars and make the right decisions. ( )

Unable to accept or explain his family's newly acquired wealth, his growing interest in sex, and a friend's shoplifting habit, a thirteen-year-old finds the pains in his stomach getting worse and worse.

GREAT GREAT GREAT BOOK ( )

Don't remember much about this book, although I know I read it when I was a child. ( )