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Rating another A+ for the latest in an unbroken list of superb novels, Lowry regales us with the second adventures of Caroline and J. P. Tate, who won readers' hearts in The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline. ""We're in a nightmare,'' says J. P. ``Wrong,'' says his sister. ``We're in Des Moines.'' Their father Herb sends for his son and daughter, nine years after the divorce from their mother, and they arrive from New York with plans to get even for banishment to the boonies. It's even worse than the siblings had imagined. J. P., the electronics genius, is compelled to coach a little kids' sandlot team, ``Taters' Chips,'' sponsored by their father's store. Caroline's fate is being sidetracked from boning up on paleontology in preparation for her future career. She has to take care of her step-sisters, infant twins, and pathetic David (Poochie), a six-year-old loser on the baseball team. The tender, funny story moves rapidly to an auspicious event where the title proves to have more than one meaning. Caroline's last letter to her mother goes, ``Now that everything is switched around, J. P. and I actually like Des Moines quite a bit.'' (812)