Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4--7--Married creative team Swanson and Behr spent a year road-tripping across the United States with their four kids and two dogs--a trip that surely inspired Japanese American Ben Yokoyama's seventh adventure. Ben's parents are moving the family to California, and they're being very cagey about why. Even more mystifying, they've decided that the family will road trip there in a rundown, budget camper with a broken bathroom. The trip initially seems doomed when Ben doesn't even get to say goodbye to his best friend, Janet, and when his meticulously organized mother clashes with his free-spirited aunt Nora. As always, a fortune cookie delivers a life lesson to Ben that consumes his thoughts, this time declaring that "everything happens for a reason." Through a series of humorous high jinks, Ben grapples with this concept in absurd and often surprisingly poignant explorations. A delightful mix of text and illustration, with dialogue often appearing in speech bubbles, makes these books incredibly approachable for developing readers. VERDICT Recommended for philosophically minded fans of "Tome Gates" or "Dork Diaries."
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