Escape from Funland by Bill Doyle - OPTIONAL

Escape from Funland by Bill Doyle (The Prize Winners of Peidmont Place, book 2), 200 pages. Random House, 2017. $16.

Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.

BUYING ADVISORY: EL – OPTIONAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Cal has set up a mini fun house in his home’s leaky basement as part of his plan to convince his parents that their family should enter the Funland Fun House Makeover Contest. The Talaskas’ beloved family home is in serious need of repairs, but they don’t have the means to fix it, and are even considering selling it. Cal’s plan doesn’t go as planned, but gets the job done. His parents decide that the family should go for it. Working together, Cal, his younger sister and brother, and their parents first scrape together the required signatures, even when unexpected competition shows up. Then they spend a week at the Funland Amusement Park searching for a hidden treasure.

There are some funny scenes in this book that made me laugh out loud, but it’s a bit uneven. The plot moves along quickly, except when it doesn’t, and the multiracial Talaska kids are endearing, if a bit too precocious. Buy it if you have the first book in the series, have a strong demand for puzzle-solving stories, or want to add to a large humor collection.

P. K. Foster, teacher-librarian