As an adult reading kids' books, sometimes the characters annoy me. What stood out in this book is that while the kids were constantly getting into trouble or chaos-they were intelligent and recognition was paid to when they were disobeying the adults around them. After a few adventures on the island, the two kids are accidentally parachute-dropped into the Congo where the excitement ratchets up to the point that you only breathe every third page. Their parents go missing on a photo-journalism expedition and they're sent to live with their uncle on Cryptos Island. Grace is very, very intelligent but with a healthy dose of phobias. Marty has a photographic memory, loves extreme adventures, and is curious beyond his control-and often gets into trouble for that. The author does an amazing job with presenting them as being kids like any other kids even while they're very unusual and interesting.
It begins with Grace and Marty at a boarding school for gifted or wealthy kids-and it's a great peek into their personalities. This book was like the Magic Treehouse kids all grown up and taking on Jurassic Park or Journey to the Center of the Earth. Instead it pulled me in and kept my eyes glued on its pages until 2 a.m. I'd intended to leisurely preview this for my son to make sure it wasn't too violent. Smith lives in Tualatin, Oregon with his wife and stepchildren. Smith's books have won "Book of the Year" awards in Colorado, Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida, as well as in his native Oregon. In 2008, Smith published the first book in the series I, Q, titled Independence Hall. Peak, the story of a teenage boy obsessed with climbing mountains, Elephant Run and Tentacles(novel).
Other novels by Smith include The Captain's Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe, Zach's Lie, Jack's Run, Cryptid Hunters, Sasquatch (novel), about a boy who searches for Bigfoot. The book continues Smith's theme, as teenage protagonist Jacob Lansa follows his biologist father to Africa where the father is researching elephants.
In 1997, Smith published his first novel, Thundercave. Smith continued to draw upon his zoo experiences for other non-fiction titles, including Journey of the Red Wolf, which won an Oregon Book Award in 1996. After working to save wildlife following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in 1990, he published his first book, Sea Otter Rescue, a non-fiction account of the process of animal rescue. Smith was born in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Portland State University and, following a part-time job at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, began a 20-year career as a zookeeper, both at the Oregon Zoo and the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. Roland Smith is an American author of young adult fiction as well as nonfiction books for children.
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