"An absorbing wilderness story that falls flat in characterization. (Adventure. 12-18) "
Peak Marcello and his friends Alessia and Ethan are eager to put their ill-fated climbing expedition in the Pamir Mountains behind them as they plan to summit Burma's highest mountain, Hkakabo Razi.
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"Compulsive reading all the way to the end. (Adventure. 12-16)"
In this follow-up companion to Beneath (2015), three white teens who have escaped a cult that lives underground (literally) try to elude recapture and learn what the cult's brilliant and tyrannical leader might be planning.
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Only months after an aborted attempt to summit Everest (Peak, 2007), 15-year-old Peak Marcello travels with his mother and a crew of videographers to Afghanistan to participate in an international peace climb.Read full book review >
"A wild, roller coaster ride despite the credibility-stretching ending. (Adventure. 11-13)"
The third and concluding volume in Smith's breakneck Storm Runners trilogy shifts the scene from a circus' devastated winter quarters in hurricane-wracked Florida to the ominously active Mexican volcano Popocatepetl.
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"A high-velocity page-turner, for all that it's only a segment of a larger arc. (Adventure. 11-13)"
Family members separated in a Florida hurricane struggle to get back together, but the waters are rising fast and big cats are on the loose in this sequel to Storm Runners (2011).
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"Since they are left sharing a barn with an elephant who is about to give birth as a vicious escaped leopard roams outside, readers are really going to want to find out what happens next. (Adventure. 11-13)"
Readers will really feel blasts of wind, water and flying debris in this disaster tale—at least until the narrative cuts off in mid-howl.
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"An adventure tale that is also a family story—as is Smith's other 2007 title, Peak. (Fiction. 10-13)"
It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for 14-year-old Nick Freestone, as he is sent out of London during the Blitz only to arrive at his father's teak plantation in Burma right before the Japanese invade.
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"Despite tense, action-packed escapes, the conclusion strains the bounds of credulity. (Fiction. 9-12)"
After a narrow escape from the drug dealers in whose trial Jack's father will testify (Zach's Lie, 2001), Jack and his family have returned to the dubious safety of the Witness Security Program.
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"Some concerns about the environment and sensitivity toward the elephants are mentioned; full-color photographs record dramatic events and minor ones in this unique partnership. (map) (Nonfiction. 7-12)"
paper 0-15-201290-7 "La," "Yah," and "Haw" are not the gurglings of an infant but a string of commands that a timber elephant must learn in the southeastern Asian forest of Myanmar, formerly Burma.
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"A first-rate adventure about greed, mutual dependence, and family. (Fiction. 11-13)"
The lush tropical rainforest serves as an unexpected but colorful setting for this sequel to Smith's Thunder Cave (1995, not reviewed).
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From a biologist with 20 years of zoo experience (keeper to assistant director): a discussion of the special care, plus unusual procedures and equipment (diets, incubators, gravity-flow feeding tubes), needed to rear a wide variety of baby animals.
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