Wild ride

In a comic misadventure that recalls Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Charley Decker, 12, hopes to get in some quality time with her brother Greg, 18, when their mother heads to Hawaii with her boyfriend Derrick for the week. Instead, Greg and his girlfriend, Marisa Ng, take Derrick's beloved convertible--a Raven Black 1964 World's Fair Skyway Mustang--into downtown Chicago, where it is first impounded, then misplaced. To help Greg retrieve the car, Charley enlists her friends: voice of reason Wade Harris, authority-challenging Oona Adair, and ace impersonator Parker Nadel. But finding the Mustang isn't the end of the road: when they discover a kidnapped man in the trunk, the siblings and their friends are drawn into the evil agenda of a ruthless tech billionaire. Calabrese's (Connect the Dots) cinematic one-wild-night telling is chaotic and laugh-out-loud funny, but never at the expense of empathy and heart. As the cohort--which largely reads as white, with some names suggesting racial diversity--runs one wild scheme after another to thwart aimless "aggro-bros" and one of the world's most powerful men, they also strengthen interpersonal bonds and overcome misunderstandings, growing closer to each other. Ages 8--12. Agent: Emily Mitchell, Wernick & Pratt. (Apr.)

A joyride turns into a madcap, world-saving scramble after a group of kids discovers a kidnapped accountant in the trunk of a car. The rare 1964 Mustang convertible his mom's fiance left in the garage proves too much temptation for 18-year-old Greg Decker--but a date night with his girlfriend, Marisa Ng, quickly takes a nightmarish turn when the car is towed. First, he has to call on his smart-mouthed 12-year-old sister, Charley, for funds, and she brings friends to the rescue party. Then the car comes out of impoundment with groggy Mitch Rosenfeld trapped inside by a pair of dimwitted hired thugs. It seems that Mitch not only stumbled upon a trove of evidence that media giant Pangea's unscrupulous billionaire CEO, Alton Peck, has been a bad boy, but also that Pangea's about-to-be-released household "digital life assistant" is pure, privacy-busting spyware. The chase is on. But while events careen along at a gratifyingly manic clip, it's the smart, surprising cast (most evidently White, with names cueing some ethnic diversity) that really puts the shine on this epic romp: As the story unfolds, each reveals hidden depths of heart, courage, self-knowledge, conscience, or character. Even the thoroughly villainous Peck comes off in the end as more pathetically flawed than evil. Pedal-to-the-metal fun, with moments both scary and triumphant to go with plenty of laugh-out-loud left turns. (Fiction. 10-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.