A Whole Nother Story

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2009: What's a family to do when its scientist-inventor-dad builds a time machine that governments, super spies with chimpanzees, and just about every evil organization in the world want to get their hands on--at any cost? Run for their lives, of course! In the very first chapter, the recently widowed Ethan Cheeseman, and his three "smart, pleasant, witty, attractive, polite, and relatively odor free" kids are roused from their beds in the wee hours of the morning by their trusty canine alarm system--their psychic and hairless dog, Pinky. They pack up the family station wagon and head out of town, eluding the bad guys by mere seconds. In this fast-paced and very humorous adventure, the Cheeseman clan hits the highway in search of a new home where they can settle down and be a normal family (whatever that is). Along the way, they use their smarts to outwit and outpace the bad guys. Every page of this debut novel, narrated by the unusual Dr. Cuthbert Soup, is full of snappy dialogue, unexpected twists and turns, and unsolicited advice on subjects ranging from how to choose a dog to timely advice on time travel. Middle grade readers who dig the tongue-twisters, quirky villains, hilarious hijinx, and brave and brainy kids of the Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch will find lots to laugh-out-loud about in a A Whole Nother Story. --Lauren Nemroff