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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
Dylan Barstow hates the world. He's been angry ever since his father died, and does whatever he wants. After he steals a car and goes joy-riding through a neighbor's field, his mother sends him off to his ex-Marine uncle for some tough love. Uncle Todd takes Dylan to Papua New Guinea, to search for the B-17 bomber that his grandfather crashed in during WWII. Because Dylan insists on doing everything his own way, and won't listen to anyone, he puts himself in a life-and-death situation in the jungles of Papua New Guinea.
The WWII aspects of this book were fascinating, especially the information about the air battles. The unfortunate part is Dylan himself. He is a real jerk through most of the book, and he totally brought this awful situation on himself. He does realize that by the end of the book, but it is too little to late. For grades 5-8.
The WWII aspects of this book were fascinating, especially the information about the air battles. The unfortunate part is Dylan himself. He is a real jerk through most of the book, and he totally brought this awful situation on himself. He does realize that by the end of the book, but it is too little to late. For grades 5-8.
Dylan learned a valuable lesson, treating others with respect, but the even greater lesson was that freedom is not free. The author did a good job of showing Dylan's evolution during the search for his grandfather's downed airplane from WWII. Mikaelsen did a good job of showing the reader a little of what some of those bomber crews went through and why they did it. I enjoyed the book and found it interesting with a bit of unexpected events along the way.
I loved Touching Spirit Bear but this book lacked in areas. The main character was so entitled it drove me nuts. However, I can see the appeal this book will have to reluctant readers and boys interested in war.
Boy adventure books are hard to come by, and good ones even moreso. This is more of a survival adventure tales that doesn't spend nearly enough time on the adventure portions in favor of trying to establish our protagonist as a problem kid.
The book certainly has a lot of appeal for male reluctant readers who are far too ignored in the current landscape, but as a quality title for someone who enjoys reading already, there is a lot out there that's better.
The book certainly has a lot of appeal for male reluctant readers who are far too ignored in the current landscape, but as a quality title for someone who enjoys reading already, there is a lot out there that's better.
At first, when I was reading this book, I thought "I'm not meant to read adventure/survival stories. This kid is an idiot and I want to smack him!" It is a bit hard for me to have empathy for people who carry around a lot of anger, which probably made this book very good for me to read. And while I may have cheered when he was suitably punished for his behavior, I was still glad that he learned a lesson and was able to turn his life around. A good read.