Once upon a time, in a very small town, there was a model family. The father, George, was the popular principal of the grade school. The mother, Linda, loved George. And they both loved their three happy children. Linda stayed at home and took care of things. The kids - Drew, Mandy, and George the Second - thrived. Then George the First dumped Linda for Mandy's fourth grade teacher and home, as the kids had known it, started sinking.fast.

Divorce, for those in the midst of it, is something like being at sea in a hurricane - scary and disorienting. And even after the storm passes, the water still churns. Shelley Mickle's spirited new novel puts us in one such storm-tossed, captainless boat with one ex-wife, three children, and one old dog, still adrift. Linda rocks the boat further by going to work at - irony of ironies - the town dump, a terrible job and a long drive from home. Then Drew succeeds in getting his driver's permit and his first traffic violation (he collides with the new doctor's vintage Mercedes), all on the same day. Then their aged roof gives way during a downpour, the roofer makes some crude passes at Linda, the old dog dies, Mandy develops strange "allergies", and George the Second insists on wearing his Halloween bunny suit everywhere. Christmas comes and so does Santa - to two houses - and Linda spends her first Christmas alone. This story, which Linda and Drew take turns telling, is as fresh and as familiar as every shipwrecked family's pain.

But the people in this family have resilience and a sure sense of direction. Linda and Drew, Mandy and George the Second keep rowing and they do finally make it to shore. How? With courage and love and the kind of good humorthat families thrive on - both before and after a storm. Shelley Fraser Mickle has written another winner.