By Colorado Kids Advisory Board member Madeleine Aaron

Title: Fat Camp Commandos Go West
Author: Daniel Pinkwater
Illustrator: Andy Rash
Publisher: Scholastic Press/ New York
Number of Pages: 89

It all started with when Sylvia and Ralph's parents started listening to a guy named Simon Primly. His mission in life was to save at people who (no offense) are fat. Now Sylvia, Ralph and their parents were all fairly large. So what Simon Primly was saying was that it was Ralph and Sylvia's parents fault they were fat. So Sylvia and Ralph's parents sent them to as Ralph says "A fat camp." Sylvia and Ralph hated it there. But, also there they met Mavis Goldfarb. They were quite impressed with her. She devised a plan to get them out of camp, and it worked. They started there mission to stop this whole thing about fat being bad. Anyway that's just the introduction.

So back to the story the next year Mavis' parents and Ralph's and Sylvia's parent started to get together a lot. Both decided to go and study Kimono Dragons. But some how again Ralph and Sylvia ended up at another "fat camp." Of course Mavis went to the rescue and she invited them to come to the due ranch she was at. This was the sadist looking place Sylvia and Ralph had ever seen. It just looked so old and broken down.

Now in this small town there was an argument going on. That had to do with some small health spas down the road and they blamed the cowboys for scaring off the costumers but the Cowboys blamed the health people for scaring off their costumers for the dude ranch. Mavis was out to make the two get together and to fix up the town. She had a plan. Some how she thought she knew aliens would land there August 6th. She, Sylvia and Ralph went into chat rooms set out flyers did just about everything they could to get the word out about the aliens. On the day of the "landing" people came in from all over. There was tons of stuff for sale. Plus, there was tons of stuff to eat. Even some secret agents were there. But to find out if they did land and what happens next you have to read the book.

Now I know what you're thinking when you read the title, "What kind of book is this?" Well those were my thoughts exactly. But after a while I really started to get into this book. The ending is a great cliff hanger! Chapter after chapter it kept you going, wanting to find out what happens next. The only thing I didn't really like about this book is it didn't give that great of a description of all the characters. I would recommend this book to kids probably from the ages of 7-12. Also to kids who enjoys mystery and adventure. But just a suggestion to kids who intend to read this book. Read its prequel first; it's called "Fat Camp Commandos" by: Daniel Pinkwater. All in all, I enjoyed this book and I think you will too! (September, 2002)