I get ideas from everywhere: from the newspapers, from radio, from lunches and talks I have with friends. It, too, was a success so there was no turning back.Although I do write books for adults, the ideas that stimulate me always seem to come to me in the form of a story for young readers. The minute Edgar Allan was launched successfully, I sat down to write Lisa, Bright And Dark.

'And when it was, everything fell into place. I didn't know that Edgar Allan would be regarded as a children's book.'It was. 'But what I wanted to do was write a short book, full of emotion and detail and excitement, for readers of all ages. She gave me an outline for a story she thought I could write well. 'In 1968, an editor from a small California publishing house and I hadlunch. In fact, I was fired from my first job for spending more time on my own projects than on the publishing house's. 'I moved to New York and worked in a publishing house. I started writing early, and badly, sending off short stories to national magazines when I was ten or eleven. Unlike his sister, Dan is a sympathetic character, yet the dynamics between the two fail to ring true and frequently tiresome dialogue makes for a sluggish pace. Readers may be dubious about why Mary Kate's insensitivity to Dan's plight (she suggests to him on several occasions that he leave the family) grows to such cruel proportions (she forges her mother's name on a letter to the state's Child Protective Services, in an attempt to get rid of Dan). And I'm not at all certain even Dan knows where the handle or the key is').

I'm not sure I can find the key to unlock Dan's heart.

Knox tells her daughter that Dan has 'a lot locked up inside him. One such exchange inspires the title (Mrs. Mary Kate and her mother (who is pregnant) engage in ongoing and repetitious conversations about why they adopted Dan ('Aren't I enough for you?' she asks her mother).

The narrative chronicling the boy's thoughts and his fears that this family, like others before, will return him to 'the state' is relatively convincing, but the Knox family comes across as stereotypical. Though his new parents may be welcoming (albeit overly angelic), his snide older 'sister,' Mary Kate, is not. Neufeld's ( Lisa, Bright and Dark) rather flat novel centers on Dan, a boy of indeterminate age who has lived in numerous foster homes and has just been adopted by the Knox family.

Lisa, Bright and Dark by John Neufeld