Teenaged twin sisters Christine and Susan Pratt are thrilled to be going on a spring tour of Washington, D.C. with their schoolmates. The highlight of the trip will be their chance to meet young members of a ballet company from Moscow. But when Chris's new Russian friend, Natasha, asks for help to defect to America, the twins undertake their most dangerous caper yet in The Pink Lemonade Charade by author Cynthia Blair.

Well, now. This seventh Pratt Twins book is the fifth for me. So I was prepared for the excess of italics and exclamation points, plus the pretty corny flair to it all.

This isn't the only book of the series to have a modest share of flat moments. But it's the first where I got to thinking the real story here could have been told in significantly fewer pages, though it's not a long book as it is. Some short stretches here and there feel like filler.

Nevertheless, this is still a good old-fashioned, fun YA read. Certainly the most serious situation I've seen Chris and Sooz in. (Hahaha, "Sooz in." Susan! And the italics and exclamation point are mine this time. You're welcome.)

While I wouldn't recommend that real-life teens face something like the former Soviet Union's KGB on their own, I still can't help but to like the Pratt sisters as heroines. They're plucky, they're thinkers, and they're doers. This adventure gets rather touching, with a standout, powerful display of true, empathetic friendship in action.

Six more books follow this one in the series. We'll see if I go on to watch the twins finish up high school and advance to the postsecondary phase of their lives. ( )