[The elements of which "The Fume of Poppies" is made are] travel and sex, and Mr. Kozol writes about both with likable enthusiasm.

Young as he is, Mr. Kozol has learned a good deal about the craft of writing, and the book has many excellent pages, but it stays close to the surface. During the first three-quarters of the novel, while Wendy and the boy are having fun, this doesn't matter, but it is a serious drawback when, on the voyage home [from a tour of Europe], the romance blows up. The explosion, which is ugly, is effectively rendered, but we realize that we don't know enough about either the narrator or Wendy to understand why it has to happen, and the narrator's explanation, which has something to do with "being an American and acting as though you weren't," doesn't help much. After that, Mr. Kozol steers the...