Steinbeck's Ghost

Hola! Steinbeck's Ghost, by Lewis Buzbee. Travis and his parents just moved from a cozy house in old town Salinas into a giant, blank slate of a house in Bella Linda Terrace. With the change of house, his parents changed as well. No longer the happy, tight-knit family they were that Travis needed to remember his old life. One day he rides his bike to the library and from there, the story begins. While working to keep the library from closing, he sees characters straight out of John Steinbeck's novels. Travis unravels the mystery of the author's hometown (Steinbeck lived in Salinas,) while overcoming the challenges of "normal life". I though this was kind of a strange book. Travis was a good character, misunderstood, heroic, and friendly. My problem with it was that it seemed kind of stuck in the middle, it should have been really fantasy or more realistic. The two parts of the book just didn't mesh well. Overall, it was good, just a little weird. Two stars.