ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

Charlie and his little brother Max are off with their parents on a new adventure (Travels with My Family, 2006), this time to the tiny village of Celeriac in France. The stone house that is theirs for a year contains the remains of an indoor well and sits on a narrow road (which is usually blocked by the neighbor’s napping dog) near a vineyard. The family’s new life is full of odd characters and strange happenings. Perhaps the most exciting event is the running of the bulls, in which Charlie’s father finds himself forced into a tight spot by an angry sharp-horned beast. With a certain dry wit, Charlie describes visiting the open-air market, eating snails, hunting for mushrooms and even seeing horses flown through the air via helicopter during a treacherous flood. Ancient traditions and festivals keep things lively and the family even vacations in Spain, where they marvel at Gaudí’s architecture. A perfect sequel, liberally illustrated with Gay’s good-humored sketches, this middle-grade novel brims with anecdotal entertainment for the earliest of armchair travelers. (Fiction. 8-12)