by Dan Gutman (Author)
The most exciting road trip in history begins! In this action-packed, New York Times bestselling adventure, twelve-year-old twins Coke and Pepsi McDonald embark on a family vacation you'll have to read to believe.
Coke McDonald and his twin sister, Pepsi, think their family's cross-country RV vacation is nothing to get excited about...until they're chased off a cliff, locked in a burning school, and receive mysterious messages in codes and ciphers. From California to Wisconsin, it's a race against time to find out who's after Coke and Pep, who's leaving the notes...and just what being a part of The Genius Files entails!
With the real-kid humor that has earned Dan Gutman millions of fans around the world, and featuring weird-but-true American tourist destinations, The Genius Files is a one-of-a-kind mix of geography and fun.
As Coke and Pep dodge nefarious villains from the Pez museum in California all the way to the Infinity Room in Wisconsin, black-and-white photographs and maps put young readers right into the action.
And don't miss the next leg of the journey in The Genius Files: Never Say Genius!
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Gr 5-8--On an ordinary day, Coke, 12, and his twin sister, Pepsi, are chased along a cliff path by a man wearing a bowler hat and driving a golf cart. This is only the first of a series of events in which people, including their health teacher, try to kill them. Eventually they learn that after 9/11, a man who survived the attack at the Pentagon developed a plan, outlined in what came to be called The Genius Files project, to identify children who will solve the world's problems. Based on their standardized test scores, Coke and Pepsi are chosen to be in the first Young American Geniuses group. But before the two can begin to fully grasp this fact, they are whisked away on a cross-country road trip with their parents, stopping off at many wacky tourist traps. Along the way they find ciphers giving them clues to potential attempts on America that they need to try to stop. While this is a fun and mostly funny adventure, it has many plot holes and suffers from poor character development. The Genius Files is only marginally explained and the ending peters out with an attempt at a cliff-hanger. Gutman sprinkles the book with interesting photos and instructions for following the children on their journey, making it a great road-trip novel about offbeat side excursions, but the mystery aspect doesn't quite fit.--Necia Blundy, Marlborough Public Library, MA
Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.