Book Description
From Newbery Honor and National Book Award-winning author Polly Horvath comes another funny, magical, and slightly dark novel filled with surprising adventures.
Ten-year-old Rupert Brown comes from an ordinary family. They live in a small house in the poorest section of town and have little money or food. So when Rupert inadvertently finds himself spending Christmas at Turgid Rivers' house--the richest boy in town--he is blown away to discover a whole other world, including all the food he can eat and wonderful prizes that he wins when the family plays games, prizes he hope to take home to his family so they can have Christmas presents for the very first time. But this windfall is short-lived when Rupert loses it all in one last game and goes home empty-handed. Each member of the Rivers family feels guilty about what happened, and unbeknownst to one another tries to make it up to Rupert in their own unique way, taking him on one unlikely adventure after another.