This is a wildly inventive novel about a boy who yearns to run away - only to discover that there's no place like home. Suddenly, his home in Lucy, Mississippi, is looking a whole lot better. He goes to school, but before long, he is convicted of being a "shuteye" and gets thrown in jail. Chester is adopted by a family named Quick - boasting a mother and a father - and meets all kinds of strange and interesting people. Then one night, Lornge takes him to the planet Alert, where sleeping is against the law. But he feels trapped in a tug of war between his aunt Dolly, who wants Chester to visit, and his mom, who doesn't want him to go. (Or as he puts it, "I tell no lies, nor shut my eyes.") It's summer, and school's out - Chester's favorite time of year because the other kids can't bother him about his unusual mother. But there's something odd about Lornge: He never sleeps. Since nothing does, she comes up with the name Lornge, and the parrot becomes the newest member of the Dumbello family. Chester's mom says that the day something rhymes with orange, they can keep the parrot. One day a white, one-eyed parrot flies into the Dream Caf. Chester Dumbello's mom interprets people's dreams. The fantastical story of a lonely 11-year-old whose parrot takes him on a magical mystery tour of a planet where sleeping is against the law. Scholastic, 13.
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