Sheila Solomon Klass writes novels for middle readers and young adults that are largely character-driven, and which are often told in the first person. Usually domestic in setting, Klass's books speak of family relations--of learning to cope with inflated parental expectations, or of dealing with a new stepmother or a distant, noncustodial parent. Loosely labeled 'problem novels', such books as To See My Mother Dance, The Bennington Stitch, Alive and Starting Over, and Next Stop: Nowhere often feature youthful female narrators whose distinctive voices Klass manages to capture on paper. Klass writes of issues central to adolescents: self-image and self-worth, abandonment, death of a parent, friendship values, and the moral costs of materialism. A more recent departure in her fiction has been historical novels about Annie Oakley and Louisa May Alcott. In these books, as in her other works, Klass manages to reproduce the unique voice of her...