[Blume's] Tiger Eyes, should slip past the censors. There is no explicit sex and there are no objectionable words. It is her finest book—ambitious, absorbing, smoothly written, emotionally engaging and subtly political. It is also a lesson on how the conventions of a genre can best be put to use.

The plot of Tiger Eyes is a staple of juvenile novels. A family member dies and the survivors must reconstitute themselves. Standard props are used: A lovable cat and a comical younger brother pop up from time to time to loosen the tension. Textbook suspense is created early: A mysterious paper bag and a romantic young stranger are left unexplained for many pages.

Thus the reader … is comfortable in TV sitcom territory. Even the opening chapter, in which a 15-year-old girl is searching for shoes to wear to the funeral of her father, shot during the robbery...