Joanne Gucwa

E-I-E-I-Uh Oh Joanne Gucwa

BioFables: Book 2, Series 1Ages 10-adult With a moo moo here, And a moo moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, Everywhere a moo moo. "Mom, will there be cows and pigs and chickens on the farm?"Home gardening isn't quite as interesting to Melody as the anticipation of getting up close and personal to cows and chickens and pigs. Her seven-year-old twin brother feels the same way. Waiting patiently for seeds to become yummy vegetables is not part of Mallory's nature, and even waiting for lettuce seedlings to grow into salad material is too long. Better to dream about an adventure that's only a week away. "With an oink oink here, and an oink oink there, Here an oink..."The twins' Mom, Agnes, hasn't seen Martha, her cousin, in ten years, so she's also looking forward to the trip and introducing her children to their aunt and uncle. The twins get a quick lesson in how to read a family tree and an even quicker lesson in some shorthand math symbols. It's 300 miles to the Speaken farm, and the twins' Dad just got an offer to test drive an experimental car that runs on fuel cells instead of gasoline. The twins get a reminder from their last trip on the chemical composition of water. Everyone's happy not only because the car runs cleaner, but also because there's room for Grandpa Mike and their dog, Rufus. Aunt Martha and Uncle Frank warmly welcome the Maloney family to their farmhouse. It's soon bedtime for the twins; the adults enjoy homemade pie with home-grown strawberries and milk from Bessie (the cow). Thanks to rain during the night, the twins learn where the smell of damp earth comes from. They also had a chance to tell Uncle Frank what they knew about pH when he told them about testing soil for crops. After learning how to feed chickens and collect eggs, the twins go with Uncle Frank and Grandpa Mike to the local cold storage locker to pick up some packages of meat. Mallory wants to be an extremophile, because Melody seems to be one. Mallory's inquisitive nature, however, sometimes gets in the way of caution and common sense. Mallory's inquisitive nature, however, is exactly what reveals his own special abilities as he finds himself enclosed in a pitch dark, walk-in freezer room. The twins know from their own garden that vegetables don't always come from a supermarket; now they get first-hand experience in not-so-successfully catching tomorrow's chicken dinner, pumping water from an underground well and building a fire to boil the water for de-feathering the chickens. They also learn a little bit about water tables and aquifers - a bit of local geology that farmers need to understand, and the slowly-changing planting zones that farmers need to know about. Predawn the next morning, Uncle Frank, Grandpa Mike and the twins head to the barn to milk cows. Melody surprises her brother and Uncle Frank steps in before Mallory can retaliate. Uncle Frank suggests that his three guests enjoy the multi-colored sunrise as he finishes the milking. That evening, Mallory and Melody get to see thousands of stars, locate the Big Dipper, and watch as the moon moves through the sky. Heading back home the next day, the family stops to enjoy a picnic lunch among old airplanes at an outdoor museum. Melody and Mallory learn that Grandpa Mike flew airplanes as a military pilot. Interesting coincidence? The twins also learn that the dry ice keeping their dessert cold isn't ice at all, and that the cold of the dry ice could actually burn your skin. A surprise awaits the family when they return home. Some lettuce leaves are nearly ready for the salad bowl, thanks to a steady rain during their long weekend away. The next time Grandpa Mike visits, he brings over his star atlas book (suburban skies are rarely dark enough to see more than just a few stars). The twins decide to create their own version of the farm's starry sky with Dad's black desk pad, some string, stones and sugar. BioFables' next title: "Sand Sack."