The relatives' station wagon: it smelled like a real car, looked like a rainbow, and was roomy enough for a crowd.

Lucky! Because a big crowd in all shapes and sizes piled into that old wagon at four o'clock one summer morning and piled out of it the next day at their relatives' place on the north side of the mountains. All in good moods.

The visitors settled in everywhere throughout the house, laughing and making music and hugging everyone from the kitchen to the front room. And they stayed for weeks.

Cynthia Rylant's words and Stephen Gammell's pictures take warm delight in the time the relatives came -- when two sides of a family made one roomy middle.