Cousin Birdlegs regales us with hilariously poignant tales of growing up gullible, bowlegged, and daddy-long-legs skinny. Summer by sweltering Iowa summer, she struggles to bloom with grace (thereby avoiding warts wryly threatened by dear Aunt Livie) while surviving scientific principle pranks thought up by cousins who will do anything to make the Hawkeyesville reunion less tedious. Blessed by a fertile imagination, Cousin Birdlegs walks us beneath skies awash in dragons breath and shares survival techniques based upon her own peculiarly sideways California logic. In prose that flows from wacky to wistful, this is a great book for travelers, for teachers, for family read-alouds, and for those who are just desperately in need of a quick reality shift into a world of pure delight.