Fat Camp Commandos: Go West - Hardcover

Daniel Pinkwater

3.63

41 ratings by Goodreads

9780439297721: Fat Camp Commandos: Go West

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439297729 ISBN 13: 9780439297721

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2002

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In this sequal to Fat Camp Commandos, the fat-camp dropouts are back--ready to raise a ruckus at a western dude ranch!

It's not enough that Ralph and Sylvia Nebula along with their dear friends, Celtic and Mavis Goldfarb have absconded from fat camp. It's not enough that they've perpertrated pranks on the people of Pookooksie. Oh, no! These rapscallions, these anti-social tubs of lard, won't stop there. Now, they are primed to challenge the great traditions of our nation, the very things we have learned as children in dark movie theaters and in front of the TV during the four o'clock John Wayne spaghetti western. Yes, that's right, they're headed to the Great American West.
Don't their parents know better? Apparently not. They're letting loose the same three kids who sacked Camp Noo Yoo as if they were Attila and his Huns.

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Review:

Thoroughly disgusted to find that, once again, they've been tricked by their parents into attending a fat camp (thinly disguised as Deepdip Cha-cha's Fun Ashram for Kids), Ralph and Sylvia Nebula hightail it out west to join their friend Mavis Goldfarb at her camp. But even here, at Rough-Ridin' Rudy's Rootin'-Tootin' Rancho, things are not as they should be. The aging, softening resident cowboys believe that the "dang-blasted, dad-gum healthies" who are converting the local dude ranches to health ashrams are driving away the customers who want the authentic Wild West experience. It's going to take some quick (and bizarre) thinking on Mavis's part to bring the two factions together again.

Bitingly clever, with jabs galore at cultural icons and social clich�s, Daniel Pinkwater's sequel to Fat Camp Commandos is not quite as dazzling as the first--mostly due to the necessary recap of the earlier book's plot. Still, accompanied by Andy Rash's goofy drawings, Pinkwater's short chapter book is a big, happy step outside the norm. (Ages 8 to 13) --Emilie Coulter

From Booklist:

Gr. 3-5. This sequel to Fat Camp Commandos (2001) opens with Sylvia and Ralph sitting outside their latest fat camp, Deepdip Cha-cha's Fun Ashram for Kids. In the first 20 pages, Ralph brings readers up to speed, interspersing hints about their present situation with memories of their adventures in the previous book. In the nearby town of Horny Toad, the siblings meet their old friend Mavis, who is outfitted in western garb. She informs them that two groups of locals are at odds, but she has plans to change that. With the help of Ralph, Sylvia, and--oh, why not?--a crew of aliens, she convinces the inhabitants of Horny Toad that (sing it now) "the health nuts and the cowboys should be friends." The lengthy recap at the beginning slows things down a bit, and the story is neither as focused nor as funny as its predecessor. Despite that, Pinkwater's wacky wit, accentuated by the deadpan humor of Rash's drawings and unrestrained by political correctness, will entertain fans who are ready to laugh equally at people in turbans and people in cowboy hats. Carolyn Phelan
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