When Mary Stolz first began writing teen-age fiction, she was hailed not only as a distinguished writer but as a ground breaker, a realist not afraid to introduce a fat heroine into a field dominated by pretty, slim girls, not afraid to let unrequited love go unrequited although traditionally romances were expected to produce happy endings. But now it is 20 years later; realism in teen-age books means drugs, ghettoes, knives, illegitimate babies, alcoholic fathers, and Mary Stolz, after a seven-year absence from the teen-age field returns with ["By the Highway Home,"] a story her publishers say is of a modern girl coping with "contemporary issues."

Thirteen-year-old Catty Reed's brother was killed in Vietnam some months before the story opens; her father loses his job as a chemical engineer and eventually decides he would rather work on the land than to continue a profession oriented toward war. Yet Catty's...