Odd man out
By: Sarah Ellis
Publisher: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 162
ISBN-13: 9780888997029; 9780888997036
Subjects: Imagination; Humorous stories; Cousins; Juvenile fiction; Fathers; Spies
Description: When Kip goes to British Columbia to visit his grandmother, it is like going to another planet-- a planet inhabited by five alien girl cousins.  Fortunately, Gran runs a loose ship, and her house is about to be demolished. So aside from sawing though load-bearing beam, anything goes.  One day, Kip bashes out the entrance to a closet in the attc and finds an old black binder that once belonged to his father.  As the summer unfolds, Kip misses his mother, but the noisy cousins provide welcome distraction-- seaside picnics, being buried alive at the beach, giving Gran a new hairstye (a procedure involving plenty of gel and a vacuum cleaner), and building his very own yurt. Yet he is constantly pulled back to the binder-- a confidential report written by a mysterious young operative who is carrying out a secret mission. Real or made up? Imagination or delusion? His father or himself, For Kip. the answers are both frightening and thriling.