With a mother who’s moved out to pursue a career and a sit-in-front-of-the-TV-and-drink-beer-all-day father who used to be a hit musician in the ’70s but now can’t even leave the apartment, who wouldn’t want to change parents? When a flyer advertising ParentSwap mysteriously appears in Danny Bell’s backpack, the British 13-year-old accepts the challenge. Rankled by his first parents, the overbearing Harrisons, Danny begins to suspect something’s up after observing camera crews following him and other strange coincidences. With the help of his friends back home, the teen discovers that he is the subject of a new reality TV show. After switching to another set of parents, a popular actress and her knighted husband, Danny decides to turn the tables on the entire ParentSwap production. At a royal gala at Buckingham Palace, featuring assistance from the Queen herself and a musical come-back by Danny’s dad, Danny gets just revenge and finds that the best parents may be his own. A satisfying, entertaining spoof on both a common teenage desire and reality show culture. (Fiction. 10-14)
