In this inaugural adventure in the Bell Hoot Fables series, Bea Flint and her family win a “Blue Moon Once-in-a-Lifetime Adventure Holiday” with no return trip. Aboard the Blue Moon Mobile, they enter a totally surreal car wash and are subjected to a harrowing undersea journey before arriving in the parallel world of Bell Hoot—minus Bea’s brother, Theo, who apparently vanished en route. Bell Hoot’s inhabitants live in tree houses, practice Mumbo Jumbo, share special aptitudes for sensing the world and have left their homes to escape the Gestapo-like Gummint. Permanently exiled in Bell Hoot, the Flints search frantically for Theo. Always a good listener, Bea taps her own emerging powers, learns to ask the right questions and converses with bees to try to find Theo before the infamous Ledbetter clan captures him. Initially confusing while the Flints sort out their bizarre new reality, the plot gradually draws readers into Bell Hoot’s compelling history, amazingly eccentric characters, fanciful flora and fauna and the mystery of the Hidden Boy. Good fantastical fare. (Fantasy. 8-12)
