["Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?"] takes place in the airless chamber of early adolescence.

The heavy problems of Lauren and Linda and Bonnie are: 1) Does it hurt to get your ears pierced? 2) Should ninth-grade girls go out with eighth-grade boys? 3) Should fifth-grade girls wear training bras?

The atmosphere is close and sweaty and mildly titillating, with cute boys on the telephone, copulating Ken and Barbie dolls, hair appearing or not appearing under the arm, and parents who are always fighting and deserve to be sued for malpractice….

[The book] is clever and funny. The chapters rush by in a catapulting present tense. Adolescent and preadolescent girls, and even chubby children who might otherwise be reading "Winnie-the-Pooh," will giggle and pass it from hand to hand.

The author is a junior-high-school teacher, and she might say that the book is an honest picture and that she does...