How to Avoid Extinction by Paul Acampora, 2016

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For fans of Gary Schmidt and Joan Bauer, a laugh-out-loud intergenerational road trip story from acclaimed author Paul Acampora!

Since the death of his grandfather, Leo's number one chore has been to chase after his grandmother who seems to wander away from home every few days. Now, Gram's decided to roam farther than ever. And despite his misgivings, Leo's going along for the ride. With his seventeen-year-old cousin, Abbey, and an old, gassy dog named Kermit, Leo joins Gram in a big, old Buick to leave their Pennsylvania home for a cross-country road trip filled with foldout maps, family secrets, new friends, and dinosaur bones.

How to Avoid Extinction is a middle-grade comedy about death and food and family and fossils. It's about running away from home and coming back again. For Leo, it's about asking hard questions and hopefully finding some sensible answers. As if good sense has anything to do with it. Against a backdrop of America's stunning size and beauty, it's also about growing up, getting old, dreaming about immortality, and figuring out all the things we can -- and can't -- leave behind.

(208 pages)

Honestly, my gut reaction when closing the book was "man, this needed to be longer!"At barely 200 pages, there didn't seem to be much room for the story to stretch as long as it needed to go. I did really like the characters and the path that they took, but I was also yearning for more.

If I'm being completely honest, actuall, I did have a little trouble with some of the characters: namely, Leo's mother and grandmother. Mainly his mother. She's not actually around for most of the book, so it's hard to get a pin on her personality, but from the little we do get she seems like a rather unpleasant mother. I get that there were reasons for her behavior, that her life hasn't been all roses and sunshine, but she's been very closed-off and hasn't mentioned any of the major parts of her life to Leo (even the parts that include his own birth father). Leo, for his part, seems remarkably nonchalant about all the information she's hidden from him–but grows increasingly curious to find out more as the book progresses. It's a bit peculiar, really, that he hadn't wondered much before about what his gone-away dad was like.

Anyway, I'm not always the biggest fan of quirky stories: sometimes they just feel forced, like someone is trying to hard to be "meaningful" by being bizarre. I think Acampora legitimately knows how to pull off a touching and off-beat story, as he did in his debut Defining Dulcie (my review) all the way back in '06. It definitely works in How to Avoid Extinction as well, though I have to admit Extinction didn't quite connect with me on the emotional level that Dulcie did.

This is a meaningful and interesting book, full of interesting and colorful characters facing up to some pretty tough truths about life. I will admit freely that there was one scene about three-fourths in that made me sob like a baby, and I definitely came out of the book wishing it hadn't ended. I get the general vibe from the book, though, that it could have gone a little deeper. The material felt a little rushed at times, because (as I said at the beginning of this review) it honestly just felt too short. Maybe it's just a shortcoming inherent in the middle-grade genre, but I can't help but bemoan all of the amazing things Acampora could have done with the plot if he'd only taken another hundred pages to write it.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora, 2006

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Quirky, uplifting, and written in a spare prose, this hopeful and humorous debut explores the connections made in life, the resilience of the human spirit, and the absurdities that keep life interesting.

(176 pages)

After a string of pretty lousy selections at the Little Free Library within walking distance of my house, I was just about ready to give up putting in the effort to go over there and swap out my books. When I pulled out Defining Dulcie, I sighed and shrugged - I figured it was the best of bad options, and would turn out as mediocre as the other books I'd gotten there.

When I actually read it, though, I realized that I'd been gravely mistaken. This is a very good book, one I'm so glad to have read.

I know that Dulcie's mother means well, but I can't help but hate her for the way she rips Dulcie away from everything she knows and loves. That's why, when she prepares to sell Dulcie's dad's car, I can totally relate with Dulcie's impulse decision to steal the car and drive cross-country to go back to her home. I am most definitely a fan of the familiar, of being comforted by what I can feel and see and touch; being ripped away from everything my father had ever owned in that way would feel to me (the way it does to Dulcie) like I was losing him all over again.

I really love Dulcie's grandfather, who takes her in once she gets back to her hometown. He's the kind of grandfather everyone wants to have: warm, funny, loving, understanding - and above all else he's simply just kind. He takes in Roxanne, a cheerful but wounded rising senior who's helping out at the school during the summer so she can spend as much time as possible away from her abusive mother at home.

And yes, I said "helping out at the school." There is a school involved, even though the story's set during the summer. But Dulcie's grandfather isn't a principal, or a teacher, or even some sort of summer volunteer; no, he's a janitor. And so was Dulcie's father, until he accidentally mixed some cleaning chemicals that shouldn't have been mixed and wound up dead on the bathroom floor. Yikes. It's very interesting watching Dulcie's grandfather, and reading memories about her father, because it's clear that both men take/took a great sense of pride and accomplishment in their responsibility to keep the school pleasant and clean. I haven't read too many books, frankly, about kids whose parents hold jobs that are traditionally viewed as being menial; I kind of wish I read more of them now, because it lends a really interesting perspective to things.

So yes, I do recommend Defining Dulcie. Don't let its small size and older release date fool you: it's a powerful, well-written novel about parental relationships, life goals, and - above all - dealing with grief. I truly enjoyed reading this little gem I found in a Little Free Library, and I hope you get the chance to read it too.