Chris Grabenstein. Welcome to Wonderland: Home Sweet Motel. New York: Random, 2016. Print.

Welcome to Wonderland is going to be a series. Home Sweet Motel is the first installment. The humor is reminiscent of Gordon Korman’s in that the main characters are middle school students. It also reminds us of Karl Hiaasen because the story focuses on some of the fringe elements of Florida culture.

P. T. Wilkie lives at the Wonderland Motel which has all the tacky detritus of a bygone era—giant figures, a little train, a pool slide shaped like a frog, and lots of things in need of repair. As in hundred of tales, the Snively Whiplash characters are a banker and builder who demand mortgage money or they will foreclose on the hotel.

We ain’t got the money fo’ the mo’gage on the fa’m…

P. T., like his namesake P.T. Barnum, loves to spin tall tales. When Junior Achievement whiz Gloria Ortega comes to visit the motel, the two of them come up with a plan to make the motel profitable.

They add speakers to the frog slide so that the amphibian “talks.” They sell green “pond scum” ice cream. They set up a “pirate” treasure hunt and plan on a Ponce de Leon fountain of youth substitute.

Clever dialogue and funny ideas keep the story going even it the plot itself has been recycled many times. They may appeal to some reluctant readers since even a lot of high schoolers stick to graphic novels. While this is not a graphic novel, each of the short chapters has at least one illustration by caricaturist Brooke Allen.

Korman and Hiaasen set the standards for their respective fiction styles, but Welcome to Wonderland is full of fun and headed in their direction.