My Favorite Survival Adventure Book: Kalahari

Kalahari, a YA read by Jessica Khoury, is a great action adventure/survival/sci-fi novel set in a world most readers probably have not visited, even through the pages of a book!

If you love adventure and exploration, see what Cotopaxi has to offer. The right gear for all your adventures!

See what others are saying:

Review

“A gripping adventure.”
--Kirkus

"Survivor meets James Bond in this page-turning mix of realism and science fiction."
—Voice of Youth Advocates

“Enthralling and filled with suspense...”
--School Library Journal"Khoury builds a relentless plot and seeds the narrative with a deadly mystery that echoes themes of her first novel, Origin (2012). The science-fiction elements and setting evoke Jurassic Park's themes of human meddling in nature, while touches of teen angst and love keep the book realistic and broaden the appeal."
--Booklist

"Khoury keeps the tension throughout with life-threatening moments and narrow escapes...a true adventure story in an unusual setting."
--School Library Connection Reviews

“A blend of survival/adventure, sci-fi, and first love, KALAHARI is grounded in the resourceful courage of a girl raised in the African bush. Thrilling, unpredictable, irresistible . . . six teenagers in dire straits, and the suspense never lets up. Readers will flock to Jessica Khoury's masterful prose and storytelling.”
--Will Hobbs, award-winning author of Far North  and Never Say Die

 

What I liked and why this adventure story sticks with me:

 

Sarah, although well traveled and trained by her zoologist parents to survive in the wild, has never been around teens her age. When a plane arrives with a group of teens from the U.S. and Canada, Sarah is terrified to make small talk with a bunch of strangers, but her father and friend have to leave camp in search of armed poachers.

 

With the threat of poachers nearby and in charge of a bunch of kids who are more at home in penthouses with air conditioning and chefs, Sarah must lead the group to the safety of the next town. But the desert is harsh. The climate brutal. With conditions worsening, their vehicle gets stuck. Now on foot, the kids discover why the poachers are out in the wild.

 

Now they have to battle the elements, an unnaturally aggressive male lion, and a group of murderous poachers. Sarah will have to rely on her training and wits.

 

The lasting thing readers will take from this read is the unusual setting and a spunky protagonist who fights for survival.

 

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

 

 

Adventure Pick: Kalahari

Kalahari
by Jessica Khoury
Razorbill
2015
354 pages
ISBN: 9781595147653


Exciting and action packed, Kalahari is sure to please. This is one adventure teen readers will be glad they took!


Growing up the only child to zoologist parents in remote Africa has prepared Sarah for just about any encounter in the natural world; any encounter except with city teens her own age, that is. When Sarah's parents invite five teens to an experimental program, she is terrified of what to say to them and  how they will react with her. Her best friend is Theo. He has guided her over the years to survive in the Kalahari. He tells Sarah not to worry; that she's a teen just like them. He could not be more wrong. Sarah has nothing in common with the kids who have arrived. They are used to creature comforts like clean beds, fresh water, air conditioning and electricity.

When Theo and her father have to leave their camp to investigate what they think are poachers,  Sarah knows something has gone terribly wrong. She is now responsible for the helpless new kids. Cute arrival Sam offers to help. He says he trusts her and will help her find her father and Theo. They  must find food, water and shelter and get to the nearest town without poachers, wild animals or something much, much worse finding them first. Sarah calls upon all her skills to find the way to a small town. Anything can go wrong. They could die of dehydration or starvation. They could wander around for days without knowing if they are going in the right direction or not. The elements will take a toll on all of them unless they get to civilization fast.

The kids know something is wrong when animals begin to act strangely. Sarah spots a silver lion who threatens her. Knowing that a male lion does not attack unprovoked, Sarah searches for answers. The kids discover a lab that she thinks her mother must also have discovered just moments before her death. Could the silver lion and Sarah's mother have something in common? Where are the lab workers? Why have they fled?

Maybe not knowing the answers to all her questions is the safest bet but Sarah is strong and inquisitive. She has Sam to depend on when the going gets tough and it is getting tougher. Sarah begins to feel lightheaded and she can't blame it all on dehydration. Sam is seriously turning up the heat.

Kalahari will take readers on a wild adventure to a different part of the world than most are familiar with. They will love Sarah and empathize with her tragic discovery about her mother's death. Most of all, readers will want Sarah to survive and save the other teens from death.

Highly recommended grade 7-up. No profanity. No sex. Violence, science gone wrong, genetics gone wrong, evil scientists.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

YA Cover Reveal and Sneak Peek: The Keeper

Cover reveal just revealed March 27, 2015
The Keeper, book 2 in the Vega Jane series

Read an excerpt here


From the publisher:

About The Keeper:
Vega Jane was always told no one could leave the town of Wormwood. She was told there was nothing outside but the Quag, a wilderness filled with danger and death. And she believed it - until the night she stumbled across a secret that proved that everything she knew was a lie.
Now just one thing stands between Vega Jane and freedom - the Quag. In order to leave Wormwood and discover the truth about her world, Vega and her best friend Delph must find a way to make it across a terrifying land of bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic. But the Quag is worse than Vega Jane's darkest imagining. It's a living, breathing prison designed to keep enemies out and the villagers of Wormwood in.
The Quag will throw everything at Vega Jane. It will try to break her. It will try to kill her. And survival might come at a price not even Vega Jane is willing to pay.
Master storyteller David Baldacci unleashes a hurricane of action and adrenaline that takes readers to the breaking point.
Happy reading!

The Burn Outs Book Giveaway and Review

 

I have FIVE free copies of The Burn Outs up for grabs! Scroll down for details how to win a free copy of The Burnouts!

my review:

The Burnouts
Quarantine, book 3
by Lex Thomas
Egmont
2014
272 pages
ISBN: 9781606843383

Available July 22, 2014 (date from publisher's website)

The Burnouts takes readers out with a flash, bang, boom! Lightning paced, reeking of madness, sadness, grittiness, and dirt, The Burnouts delivers a TKO.

Brothers Will and David are reunited on the outside of McKinley, but both of them feel the  need to save Lucy who remains inside. There is talk that the government has finally found a cure for the infected and David wants to travel to Minnesota and check it out. Meanwhile, things have deteriorated beyond control inside the high school.

Gangs of kids roam the school looking for food, fights, and drugs. Some will do anything for a quick high: sniff gasoline, markers, paint or whatever they can "cook" up. There is no medicine and no clean water. Kids are dying every day waiting to be evacuated. Only the lucky will survive; only the sly will live to see another day.

Lucy is all alone--she's smart and  savage when she needs to be. Having survived a few battles of her own, she is not ready to face any more strife. When she realizes that both Will and David have entered the school, she is afraid for them all. How will the three of them escape the madness? And how will they remain human?

Book 3 is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Recommended for high school readers and fans of the trilogy. This book is much edgier than The Hunger Games trilogy. The Burnouts is intended for mature readers--I do NOT recommend it  for middle school readers. Blood, gore, sex, deviant acts, and drug use abound. Although The Burnouts depicts a world gone mad, it is certainly a world that humans can imagine--in our darkest nightmares.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the arc from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

For your chance to win a free copy:

Post a comment to the blog and please include your first name, city, state and email contact. Deadline for posts is July 21 at noon MST! Winners are chosen randomly by Randomizer. Winners will be notified on July 22 in the afternoon. Winners have 24 hours to respond to my email. Books will ship from New York. Good luck and start posting, Pamela

Series Pick: The Burnouts (Quarantine, book 3)

The Burnouts
Quarantine, book 3
by Lex Thomas
Egmont
2014
272 pages
ISBN: 9781606843383

Available July 22, 2014 (date from publisher's website)

The Burnouts takes readers out with a flash, bang, boom! Lightning paced, reeking of madness, sadness, grittiness, and dirt, The Burnouts delivers a TKO.

Brothers Will and David are reunited on the outside of McKinley, but both of them feel the  need to save Lucy who remains inside. There is talk that the government has finally found a cure for the infected and David wants to travel to Minnesota and check it out. Meanwhile, things have deteriorated beyond control inside the high school.

Gangs of kids roam the school looking for food, fights, and drugs. Some will do anything for a quick high: sniff gasoline, markers, paint or whatever they can "cook" up. There is no medicine and no clean water. Kids are dying every day waiting to be evacuated. Only the lucky will survive; only the sly will live to see another day.

Lucy is all alone--she's smart and  savage when she needs to be. Having survived a few battles of her own, she is not ready to face any more strife. When she realizes that both Will and David have entered the school, she is afraid for them all. How will the three of them escape the madness? And how will they remain human?

Book 3 is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Recommended for high school readers and fans of the trilogy. This book is much edgier than The Hunger Games trilogy. The Burnouts is intended for mature readers--I do NOT recommend it  for middle school readers. Blood, gore, sex, deviant acts, and drug use abound. Although The Burnouts depicts a world gone mad, it is certainly a world that humans can imagine--in our darkest nightmares.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the arc from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Adventure Pick: Stranded

Stranded
by Jeff Probst and Chris Tebbetts
Scholastic
2013
176 pages

What happens when a smooth sailboat experience becomes dangerous and life threatening? Four kids who don't know each other and don't like each other are thrown together when their parents marry. The parents send the four on a sailboat adventure with their uncle Dexter and his first mate Jim. When the weather turns rough, their uncle tells the kids to go below in the cabin.

The storm is too much for the boat and soon Dexter and Jim are launching the life raft. Jim and Dexter are swept away with the raft and kids have to weather the storm alone with no power and no mainsail. Eventually the kids are washed onto a rocky outcropping on an uninhabited island (shades of "Survivor")!



Forced to work together, the four soon realize they only have each other. They are able to contact their parents and tell them approximately where they are--the Coast Guard is searching for them, but the search area is 500 miles wide. The kids set up a signal fire in case they see planes and learn to trap rain water for drinking water. They salvage what they can from the sailboat.

Jim and Dexter are rescued but the kids are running out of hope. When a huge wave takes the sailboat out to sea, they realize that they will have to survive with nothing but each other.

Jane is the most remarkable character of the four children. She's smart, outspoken, and fearless. She's only nine years old, but she's the brains in this mixed family.

Highly recommended grade 5-up. Anyone who likes action and adventure is sure to like this book.

FTC Required discalimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

The Raft

The Raft
by S.A. Bodeen
Scholastic
2012
231 pages

2013 Tayshas Reading List (Texas)
Nominee for the 2013 ALA Quick Picks and 2013 Best Fiction for Young Adults


Taut and gripping, The Raft will capture teen readers and take them on a scary adventure at sea. Imagine being all alone on a raft with no food or water stranded somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and afraid every minute.

Robie knows a lot about the Pacific and marine life. She's lives on Midway, a small atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where her parents are research biologists. She hops flights on small supply planes to Hawaii to visit her aunt all the time. She's in Hawaii with her aunt when her aunt has to leave the island for business. She agrees to let Robie stay at her apartment if her friend Bobbi checks up on her on a daily basis. Bobbi calls later and cancels and suddenly Robie is alone in Hawaii. A run-in with a local bum frightens Robie and she decides to hop a supply plane home to Midway.

Almost home, the plane experiences engine failure and they have to land at sea. Max, the new co-pilot, helps Robie exit the plane and into the life raft. He's been hurt and he sleeps most of the time. Days and nights pass. Hunger and thrist become unbearable. On top of it all, there seems to be a hole in the raft. Robie keeps bailing water to no avail. She knows she'll have to put Max in the water in order to fix the raft and save them both. She carefully puts him into a life vest and puts him in the water.

After many days, Robie spots land. It's a small island but she's not sure which one it is. She wakes up on the beach after a rough landing. The island is uninhabited but at least Robie is on dry land.

No one knows where she is and no one will be looking for her. She found the plane's manifest in Max's travel bag. Everything on the plane is listed on it except for her name. No one will know she was ever on that plane. She didn't call her parents on Midway before leaving Hawaii because phone communication is almost always down.

Can a 16 year old girl survive with no supplies whatsoever? Can she nurse Max back to health? Will they ever be rescued?

A shocking twist--that readers will never see coming--delivers a knock-out punch near the ending of the story.

Readers will admire Robie's tenacity and grit. She faces uncommon odds and beats them. She is a true surivivor and would undoubedly "outwit, outplay, and outlast" any other contestant of television's "Survivor."

Highly, highly recommended grade 7-up. No language. Some "ick" factor when Robie is forced to eat raw meat to survive and when she clubs a seal--the seal is woulnded and in pain, so Robie is forced to do the only humane thing she can think of.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Dystopian Pick: Ashes

Ashes
by Ilsa J. Bick
Egmont
2011
480 pages

Available September 6, 2011

(Blogger's Note: I read this novel in one day and passed it on to my husband who is retired ex-military and who loves survival, zombie, and military books. He couldn't put it down either. This is the BEST dystopian book I've read this year. Don't miss it!)

Gritty, grim, grotesque, gruesome, gratifying and ultimately deeply satisfying, Ashes is this year's best ya dystopian novel. It will have crossover appeal into the adult market and is, in fact, being marketed heavily on military bases and sci-fi, zombie fan,teen blogs and websites.

From the first pages, Ashes grabs the reader, shakes her awake, and takes her on a relentless journey through disaster and ruin, and doesn't let go her go even after the very last word is read and processed. I found myself thinking about this novel for days afterwards wondering, "what if...?" Ashes is the first book in a planned trilogy and the ending leaves you wanting more. Readers will plan to read all three books if the next two are anywhere near as entertaining and compelling as Ashes.

Alex leaves her aunt's home near Chicago to venture into the Waucamaw Wilderness near Lake Superior. She is on an odyssey to save herself and free herself from the "monster," an inoperable brain tumor that will likely kill her soon. Orphaned at age fifteen when her parents were killed in a horrific accident, Alex has learned to be fiercely independent and caustic to strangers she meets. Hiking on the mountain, she runs into a friendly dog, a feisty nine year old with a real attitude and a sweet old grandfatherly type.

An electomagnetic pulse hits and Jack, the grandfather, dies instantly. Alex is knocked to the ground and her brain feels like its on fire. The world has fallen apart and Alex is left to deal with an orphaned nine year old and her dog.

The trio soon find out that nothing is the same. The pulse has changed animals and people, too. They are attacked by a madman who attempts to kill them with his bare hands until a shot rings out, saving Alex. When she wakes two days later, she is introduced to Tom, the man who saved her. Tom is home on leave from Afghanistan and has demons of his own. Tom and Alex figure that a mass of EMP's have been set off to destroy all communications and everything that runs on a battery. The sun turns red and the moon is green at night.

As the foursome try to make it north, they soon realize there's not just one madman, everyone over age 21 has changed into zombie-like creatures. Only the very young and the very old are spared. It makes no sense. Why didn't the blast affect the old people? Why are the children saved? And why is Alex not affected...yet?

When they are separated, Alex escapes death only because dogs now seem to LOVE her. The dogs seem to know who has "changed" or who is "changing." Yet, they embrace Alex as their pack leader. The town of Rule takes her in hoping that her "skills" will help them overcome the zombie hordes. But things are not always as they seem; sometimes those in the right turn out to be horribly wrong...

Part survival novel, part zombie wars, part romance, part dystopian, part sci-fi, part realistic fiction, Ashes is a thrilling read. This book will garner a lot of attention among readers and will likely be on YALSA's (Young Adult Library Services Association) list of Teens' Top Ten for 2011. This is book one of a planned trilogy. I can't wait for books two and three!

Highly, highly recommended grades 8 and up. No sex but lots of gore. Violence. Zombie fans and dystopian fans will eat (pun intended) this up!

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review.

YA Pick

The Compound
by S.A. Bodeen
Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2008.
248 pages.

This first novel was surprising. Surprisingly great! The Compound strikes close to home in this era of the Internet and streaming video where news stories hit the net within seconds. Because we are so aware of government coups, upheavals, gorilla warfare, and nukes, we are afraid of something happening as it does in this novel.

Eli and his family are forced into a safe compound underground built by his eccentric billionaire father. Eli's twin and grandmother don't make it before the iron door shuts. They are lost to the family. The world as Eli knew it has been destroyed by nukes and radiation. They are only safe stuck in the compound for the next fifteen years. The vault cannot be opened until fifteen years pass and the world is "safe" from nuclear fall-out. His father has planned this safe haven for years and stockpiled supplies, even medicine and a medical wing. They are prepared for anything. Except the livestock start dying, flour is running short, and they are facing a real food crisis. His father has planned for that. Every year a new Supplement joins the family. These are the offspring of Eli's mother and father--yes, children--, but they are not considered part of the family. They are raised in case the food runs out.

Eli and his sister find shocking news. They discover that their father has been in touch with the outside world through the Internet. They wonder, if there is Internet, people are still alive! And if there is Internet, most of the world must be normal! Eli confronts his father about the lies, and the novel continues to shock. Readers who like thrillers will love this one. Recommended for all YA collections, grades 7 and up.