This month's book reviews

Six kids are shipwrecked on an uncharted
island with a left over atomic bomb

The set-up for this story is that six kids in their early teens are on kind of a "shape up" cruise for kids that have been in varying kinds of trouble. The cruise ship is caught in a violent storm and sinks. The kids manage to make it to a small Pacific island that doesn't show up on any maps. The island is covered with tropical vegetation and contains some abandoned military buildings left over from World War II. The war had ended in 1945, fifty-six years earlier. By accident, the kids discover an old bomb had been left behind when the soldiers and sailors went home at the war's end. The bomb looks just like pictures of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan to end the war. Just to add even greater danger to the situation, the kids find that vicious smugglers are using the island to trade in illegal goods. In fact, one of the kids is shot and seriously wounded by accident when the smugglers are randomly firing their guns.

Much of the story shows how these kids with widely differing personalities come to depend on one another to survive in a not too friendly environment. The title of the paperback is "Island, book three, Escape." The little book is the third and concluding volume of a three part series. Because it summarizes what went on before this book takes up the story, it stands on its own. On the other hand, if you think you like the story line, you may want to purchase all three of the inexpensive paperbacks and read them in the proper order. If the other two are like "Island, book three, Escape", a reader will experience plenty of suspense and excitement.

 

If you like stories with guns, bows and arrows, Indians, and outlaws, this is a book for you

"Tucket's Home" by Gary Paulson is a western and pioneer adventure story set in the pre-Civil War period. It is the fifth and concluding book of a paperback series about the yearlong travels of Francis Tucket as he tries to find his family after being kidnapped from a wagon train by Pawnees. Francis had just turned fourteen when he was separated from his family, which was traveling to Oregon along the Oregon Trail. With the help of a friendly mountain man named Jason Grimes, he escapes from the Indians. Jason Grimes teaches Francis how to survive on the trail. Soon, Francis is involved in one dangerous adventure after another.

At the beginning of this fifth book, Francis has picked up two traveling companions, ten-year-old Lottie and eight-year-old Billy, a brother and sister who had been traveling with another wagon train. They had been with their father who when he caught the deadly disease, Cholera, and was left to die along the trail by other members of the wagon train. After discovering the orphaned children, Francis felt responsible for helping them go west with him. Young as the two kids are, each of them develops skills that help all three of the group survive on the journey westward.

There are some shocking scenes in the book as the kids meet fellow travelers, only to find their new friends later murdered by a roaming band of ex-soldiers turned into killers. How the kids cope with danger and become more and more self-reliant makes up the main part of the story. A reader is kept wondering right up to the last minute whether the kids will ever find a safe home.

If you like just a little bit of history and just a little bit of geography mixed with a whole lot of adventure, the Tucket books are books you should consider reading.

 

History and mystery combine on
the Colorado frontier in 1867

Emma Henderson lost her father in the last days of the Civil War. He had been a small newspaper editor and publisher in Chicago before he went to war. Emma's mother had worked with her husband in running the newspaper. She thought she had learned enough to accept an offer to start a newspaper in a small town in Colorado. Emma wasn't happy to be leaving her friends and the comforts of home to travel to an unknown place. However, she had promised her father as he left for war that she would help her mother if something happened to him. As they were preparing for their journey, Emma heard someone whistling her father's favorite tune, just as he whistled it. The mysterious whistler is the source of the name of the book, "Whistler in the Dark."

In Colorado, Emma and her mother found nothing was like it had been promised. The founder of the town had lied about the size of the town, the existence of a church and school, and about providing a home and a newspaper print shop. In addition, it became clear that someone didn't want a newspaper in town. To add to her fears, Emma heard the mysterious stranger whistling her father's tune outside the window of the boarding house. Had he followed them from Chicago just to keep them from staying in Colorado?

Emma's mother was a strong and independent woman, but she was almost ready to give up. Emma became angry enough to encourage her mother to fight against the odds and work to publish a successful newspaper. Events get complicated, but luckily there are good people to help Emma and her mother fight against whoever it was that was trying to drive them out of town. Once you get involved with Emma's efforts to find out who is sabotaging her and her mother, you can't wait to see how it all turns out.

 

Monkeys, of all things, plague a young
Oklahoma homesteader in the 1890's

Jay Berry is a fourteen-year-old boy in family of homesteaders trying to farm in southeastern Oklahoma. He and his twin sister, Daisy, live with their parents. Daisy has difficulty walking because of a deformed leg. Her parents have been told that Daisy's leg problem could be corrected with surgery, but they are unable to save enough money to afford it. In spite of her disability, Daisy remains cheerful and surprisingly active. To complete the picture, Jay's grandparents run a general store not too many miles from where Jay and his family live.

When his chores are done, Jay along with his hound dog, Rowdy, roam around the surrounding countryside. The densely wooded river bottomland is especially interesting to Jay. His mother doesn't like him to go there, because it is so swampy and easy to get lost in. On one of his jaunts, Jay is astonished when he sees what appear to be monkeys. His parents laugh at him and think that he must be mistaken. When Jay tells his grandfather about what he saw, however, his grandfather had an explanation. He'd read that a traveling circus had lost thirty monkeys, or more correctly, twenty-nine little monkeys and a chimpanzee, or "big monkey." He had also read that the circus was willing to pay two dollars reward for each monkey captured and a whole $100 for the "big monkey."

Jay can't believe his good fortune. He was about to be rich! Now he could buy the pony and the new rifle that he had always wanted. All he had to do was catch the monkeys and turn them over for the reward. Boy, was he in for a shock! Every idea that he and his grandfather came up with to catch the monkeys failed. Clearly, the chimpanzee or "big monkey" was too smart to get caught or to let any of his little monkey friends get captured. You have to read the book, "The Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls, to find out if the monkeys were ever caught, and, if they were, how it was done. On the other hand, you just might have seen the Disney Video of the same name to see how it all turned out.