Jareth Gardner's mother drinks too much and can't even remember his father's name. Jareth is involved in petty crime and his brother is so sick he may not live to be an adult. But in Elizabeth Wennick's Changing Jareth (Polestar $8.95), a first novel, the streetwise youth learns trust as a tool for survival. Like S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Jareth is rooted in contemporary street culture. 1-896095-97-6

[BCBW AUTUMN 1999]