The Absolutely True Story

The Absolutely True Story...How I Visited Yellowstone Park with the Terrible Rupes, by Willo Davis Roberts (Atheneum, 1994.)

Lewis and Alison are 11-year-old twins. Their new next door neighbors, the Rupes, seem like a nice family. Mrs. Rupe is a friendly lady. And Mr. Rupe is a good bowler. They have three cute kids, Harry, Ariadne and Billy. What's not to like? So Lewis and Alison's parents agree to let their twins go with the Rupes on a motorhome vacation to Yellowstone Park.

Now, the Rupes aren't really terrible. They're just terribly lax, and the kids, as a result, are terribly unruly. If this story were told once the kids reached high school, we might have a darker story. As it is, it's a funny story. Lewis' observations of the Rupes are hilarious. These kids are allowed to eat candybars and chips all day, steal cats from the motor park, throw stuff into geolical wonders at Yellowstone, etc. (Actually, that part is kind of scary.)

The Rupes invited Lewis as a friend for Harry, who is the same age. They invited Alison as a built in (and unpaid) babysitter for the younger Ariadne and Billy. This way, Mrs. Rupe can take it easy, which is her forte. (Her idea of multi-tasking is smoking and sitting in a lawnchair.) Mr. Rupe, meanwhile, has his hands full trying to operate their deluxe motor home, which they rented. Apparently, driving a motorhome is similar to driving an 18-wheeler. It's not something you teach yourself. Well, Mr. Rupe does. But Lewis has to coach him from the backseat based on what his grandpa taught him.

The motorhome is what gets them in trouble. Somebody has hidden money in there. Billy finds it and hides it someplace else (in the motor home.) Now the money hiders are following the family, waiting for them to leave the motor home somewhere not swarming with tourists (kinda hard in yellowstone.) Eventually, the bad guys find the motor home deserted, or so they think. The kids are inside, but the parents are out with friends.

The mystery is a not a hard case to crack, but it is exciting. And the location of the money had me fooled. (I thought it was in the the toilet.)

The characters are what drive this story: Mr. and Mrs. Rupe are really funny as clueless parents, and their kids are real characters. They are not portrayed as brats--more like unruly kids in a funny way. Of course, I kept thinking of what was going to happen once these kids were in high school, but that's just a personal worry. (They won't go to high school. It's a book!)

I thought this was an interesting way to get the parents out of the picture: cluelessness/lax parenting, without crossing over into the parents being neglectful. Somehow, they don't come across as bad people--or bad parents, even. Maybe because all is set right in the end. At the same time, the kids were free to solve the mystery on their own.

The Verdict: A funny story with a mystery embedded in it.