Out of Tune: 03/23/18

Out of Tune by Gail Nall is a middle grade road trip story, similar in premise to Far from Fair by Elana K. Arnold (2016). This one though is set in Wyoming

Maya loves country western music and wants to audition for a TV talent show, Dueling Duets. She has a deadline to be in Nashville by a certain date but that might mean running away from home. Home, though, is now an ancient RV that's traveling across the countryside.

Like The Someday Birds, Maya's road trip takes her and her family (caravanning in two RVs) to Yellowstone National Park. It's here that she begins her plan for running away to Nashville. Though the blurb promises a "one-hundred-mile bike ride with her know-it-all little sister, a cute nature boy, and blue-haired, earbud-addicted Shiver (a.k.a. the most annoying girl ever)" the reality of the book is that most of the book is Maya's plans being repeated thwarted.

A lot of times these stories where the parents for dramatic plot reasons have to suddenly uproot the family but refuse to explain the situation to their children end up in the children being forced to do something different and learn a life lesson from the initial disappointment. That lesson is here too but the adults in the book are given a chance to redeem themselves. Although Maya doesn't have the summer she expected, she does get to participate in Dueling Duets. How that happens, though, is a big part of the novel.

Three stars

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