(#33 in the 2009 Book Challenge)

Oh, Daniel Pinkwater, I love you so. I would totally run away with you (in a chaste way) to go live on an island populated by reptiles. I think if anyone else tried to do what he does with his wacky plots, it would come off as contrived and trying too hard and gimmicky. Somehow his books end up great. While going from Chicago to LA on the Super Chief in the 1940s, Neddie Wentworthstein is given a small turtle by a Navajo shaman that starts him off on a series of strange adventures involving Hollywood, the film industry, a ghost bellboy, and his military school. My favorite line was when his teenage sister refused to continue touring around LA with their parents, and declared she wasn't going to keep driving around like the Grapes of Wrath. There were some of the usual nods to the rest of the Pinkwater universe, like the fat men from outer space and the game show host Eddie Eft.

Grade: B+
Recommended: Entertaining middle reader with boy and girl appeal, and would be a good read-aloud. Excellent for fans of turtles, and 1940s era Hollywood. ( )

I loved this. It's weird and combines a relentless plot with enough non-sequiturs to keep it interesting. I'm on the list for his follow-on book, the Yggesey. This is a great young adult book and also good for someone like me with a case of arrested development. ( )

When shoelace heir Neddie Wentworthstein and his family take the train from Chicago to Los Angeles in the 1940s, he winds up in possession of a valuable Indian turtle artifact whose owner is supposed to be able to prevent the impending destruction of the world, but he is not sure exactly how.

This is a great little story about a kid who moves from Chicago to L.A. and has lots of adventures along the way. There's a very important turtle, a swashbuckling movie star and his son, a circus, and even a mammoth. Pinkwater's a good storyteller, and I think my kids will absolutely love this book. I can't wait to read it aloud to them. You know how some books just cry out to be read aloud? This is one of those. It's magical and funny and a joy to read from beginning to end. ( )

www.bookyooky.com/?p=19 ( )