A Perfectly Reasonable Plan

Six-year-old Adalia Wright has an unusual way of processing grief. She buries dolls in the backyard. She reads National Geographic for tips on Aboriginal and Aztec death rituals instead of reaching for storybooks. And she has recently attempted to mummify the family cat in vegetable oil and towels--an indignity the cat, for the record, thoroughly enjoyed. Her grandmother Winnie has had enough. Convinced Adalia would be better off with her maternal grandparents, she rounds up her husband Abe and her two elderly siblings, loads everyone into an aging van, and sets off cross-country. A two-day drive. A perfectly reasonable plan. What begins as a straightforward trip accumulates, almost against its will, a socially anxious stranger, a prickly hedgehog, and a three-legged rescue dog. Mechanical failures pile up. Wrong turns multiply. Siblings revolt.