8Instead of dream vacations to Disney World and hotels with swimming pools and water slides, the parents in Travels with My Family insist on obscure destinations in the middle of nowhere. They're determined to go, even if it means hours of dull driving filled with countless back-seat, argument-inducing games of Twenty Questions and out-loud readings of the "How to Change a Tire" chapter from the owner's manual. But bad as the travel is, it's nothing compared to what happens when they arrive: eating grasshoppers in Mexico, forgetting the tide schedule while collecting sand dollars off the coast of Georgia, and mistaking alligators for logs in the middle of Okefenokee Swamp.

Travels with My Family is told from the point of view of a long-suffering big brother who must attend to many responsibilities in this eccentric family -- keep little brother out of trouble; humor artistic Mom while she seeks out beauty and inspiration in the least likely places; and discourage nearsighted, tone-deaf Dad from pulling out the road map to search for yet another strange destination.