The Absolutely True Story: How I Visted Yellowstone Park with the Terrible Rupes

From School Library Journal Grade 4-7?Twelve-year-old twins Lewis and Alison are invited to join their new neighbors, the five-member Rupe family, on a summertime trip from Washington state to Yellowstone Park in a rented motor home. Though pleased to be going, Lewis realizes that he and Alison (especially Alison) will be responsible for Billy, 4, and Ariadne, 3, as brother Harry, 12, and the wealthy, laissez-fair parents seem oblivious to the needs of the two mischievous youngsters. Lewis often reflects on the orderly comfort of his own home with its wholesome meals and consistent parents, as traveling with the Rupes involves driving mishaps, frayed nerves, missing children, and a surfeit of junk food. Even the fascinating scenery is dimmed by the Rupes boorish behavior, but the real discomfiture surrounds Billy's puzzling discovery of stray $100 bills in the motor home and the sense that they are being tailed by two suspicious-looking men. Danger intensifies when the men seize the vehicle and drive off with the children on board. The kids use clever guerilla tactics to foil the predictably nasty kidnappers and save the day in this high-spirited tale of action and light suspense, reminiscent of Roberts's popular Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job (Atheneum, 1985).?Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Sringfield, VTCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From