nother

Winter is the perfect time for soup, Dr. Cuthbert Soup that is! Meet the master who has blended equal parts humor and adventure with a pinch of the unexpected to create a wonderful concoction sure to cure all, and perhaps even reluctant readers! These books are guaranteed to satisfy, but beware, reading them causes outbursts of uncontrollable laughter!

A Whole Nother Story is the first of the three books and tells how the adventures of the Cheeseman family began. Another Whole Nother Story and No Other Story follow as books 2 and 3, respectively. All the books are narrated by Dr. Cuthbert Soup, head of the Center for Unsolicited Advice, whom we later learn knows Ethan Cheeseman the patriarch of this time-traveling family. Dr. Soup’s unsolicited advice is on a variety of subjects and is incredibly funny.

The plot is simple. A family trying to go back into time to save one of their own discovers that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, but the end result is worth the trouble. The details are: Ethan Cheeseman and his lovely wife Olivia are on the verge of completing a time machine when secret government and corporate agents try to “buy” their invention. When the Cheesemans refuse to sell it, Olivia is murdered. The family goes on the run. Fast forward two years and we find Ethan, his three children, his bald psychic dog and one sock puppet still on the run. They have managed to keep ahead of the villains by going from town to town and changing their names, but the villains are gaining ground. All the running has given Ethan enough time to complete the time machine, but the government agents, foreign spies and one genius monkey in pursuit, keep getting in the way of him actually using it!

Although the Cheesemans are clever and the agents are not, they will still need the help of a band of pirates to outrun the villains. They discover the pirates are none other than their very own ancestors who traveled forward in time because of a curse. Could the curse be the cause of all the Cheeseman trouble? Well of course it can. The family agrees to help them reverse the curse and go back in time.

Book 2 sets out the adventure where they return to the 1600’s make new friends and return the stolen goblet, which caused the curse. When they are set to return to the day when Olivia was murdered, their plans are derailed again. Book 3 begins when the Cheesemans discover they have overshot their mark. They are now in another dimension known as Some Times where all of time occurs at the same time. Once again they must outrun danger. But fortunately for them they have a bit of luck. Didn’t I say they broke the curse? They are able to go back to the day Olivia died, team up with the versions of themselves in the past time line, and as one big happy Cheeseman family outwit the villains and save Olivia.

These books are fun, action packed and guaranteed to be read over and over again, not just by children, but I suspect their parents as well. The warning regarding outbursts of uncontrollable laughter applies to them as well. So it is safe to say, these books are must-reads. Happy reading!