By James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
Amazon rating: 4.7/5, grades 3-7
Good Reads: 4.17/5
Common Sense Media: 4/5, ages (+
4Rbooks: 2/6, grades 6-7
451 pages
Synopsis:
The Kidds are a family of treasure hunters. They travel the world on their boat “The Lost” searching for and finding lost treasure. As the story begins, Mrs. Kidd is missing in Cyprus and Mr. Kidd has seemingly been lost at sea during a terrible storm. The four children must find a way to survive and complete their father’s last treasure hunting mission. They will need to use Tommy’s athleticism, Stephanie’s (Storm) brilliance and photographic memory, and the Bick and Beck’s twin sense to be successful. Bick is the narrator of the adventure while Beck does all of the illustrations.
Their journey will take them to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, to Florida, South Carolina, and finally New York. The children will find a fortune in Spanish gold, a Minoan necklace, and a Grecian urn. They will also be cornered by crooked thieves, attacked by scuba ninjas and a surfer gang (more than once, girls and guys) and almost killed. They will also learn things about their mom and dad that they never knew.
Throughout their adventures, the children stay focused on completing their mission, but also finding out what happened to their mom and dad. Will they ever be together as a family again.
Parental Guidance: medium high
Many scenes of children in danger with guns and other weapons pointed in
their direction and threats to kill them.
Also, many scenes of the children using various weapons to escape their
predicaments which lead to injuring some of their pursuers.
Storm is overweight and the surfer dudes make disparaging remarks about
her size.
Tommy does a lot of flirting with girls in bikinis.
There is some mild, sexual innuendo.
The children call themselves “The Wild Things” and at one point Bick states
“we have no fear of adults and zero interest in obeyhing the rules of
their so-called society.”
The mom has been kidnapped and Beck is kidnapped for one day.
Recommendation:
This was a major disappointment. I first came upon this series through book #6 and thoroughly enjoyed it. James Patterson is a famous adult writer (but has been venturing into children and middle school books) and Chris Grabenstein is the author of the Mr. Lemoncello series, Word of Mouse, and The Island of Dr. Libris, all of which I recommend highly. I was looking forward to reviewing the entire series and recommending them all. I can only hope that this first book is the outlier to the series and the rest are more appropriate for elementary age children.
From a story standpoint, I thought that it dragged at times as the children went from one dangerous situation to another. I think the plot line could have easily been condensed. After awhile you just wanted them to get on with their adventure. There were things to like about the story including the historical and art information, and the illustrations are fun. It might have appeal to reluctant readers.
But the constant scenes of children’s lives in danger and having the children use weapons to escape made this a difficult book to recommend. The fat jokes at Storm’s expense makes it a definitive “no” for me. I’m sure I will review a some more books in the series. I hope I will not be disappointed again.
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