How to Avoid Extinction, by Paul Acampora
Since Leo’s grandfather died, his grandmother has spent a lot of her time wandering around the park, walking by the river, eating free grocery store samples, reading at the library, or sitting at a table at Good Eats, the 24-hour donut shop. Missing her husband is Gram’s full-time job.
Leo’s job is to find her whenever she goes missing. Early one Saturday evening, Leo finds his grandmother drinking coffee at Good Eats surrounded by National Geographic magazines and a United States road map. She and her husband used to travel around the country. One trip they never took was to see the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in Price, Utah.
While Leo urges his grandmother to go home, Abbey, waitress and third cousin, encourages her to go to Utah. Before he knows it, Leo isn’t taking Gram home, but accompanying her and Abbey across the United States. Leo keeps thinking about how mad his mother is going to be when she finds out, but he can’t change the course of this inevitable journey.
After Gram ditches Leo and Abbey in Nebraska and heads to Utah on her own, Leo learns that the trip never was about seeing dinosaurs.
