Peak
By: Roland Smith
Extreme nature, extreme danger
Kelly: ☻☻☻☻
Boy Reader: ☻☻☻
Boy Reader: ☻☻☻
This story combines a coming-of-age survival story with modern elements like a blended family, a graffiti tagger, and international travel.
Peak is a fourteen year old boy arrested for climbing and tagging NYC skyscrapers. To avoid jail, he's shipped off to China with his absentee/self-absorbed father. Dad schleps Peak along for an Everest summit attempt (with a 'let's not tell your mom about this') hoping to garner publicity and save his business.
The characters are entertaining and distinct and the plot is compelling. Compelling as in, 'you will not be able to put this book down until you find out whether Peak makes it to the summit or not'.
I always get a little nervous when the protagonist is 14 (and the book is shelved as YA). The potentially objectionable bits in this one are (a) the dad swears a few times and (b) the climber's corpses they run into on the mountain are a little intense.
We did this as a bedtime story (WARNING: It reads more like a shot of 5-Hour Energy than a warm glass of milk). Boy Reader was entranced by the action, but equally drawn to the deeper concepts in the story. His favorite line: "The only thing you'll find on the summit of Mount Everest is a divine view. The things that really matter lie far below."
Peak is a fourteen year old boy arrested for climbing and tagging NYC skyscrapers. To avoid jail, he's shipped off to China with his absentee/self-absorbed father. Dad schleps Peak along for an Everest summit attempt (with a 'let's not tell your mom about this') hoping to garner publicity and save his business.
The characters are entertaining and distinct and the plot is compelling. Compelling as in, 'you will not be able to put this book down until you find out whether Peak makes it to the summit or not'.
I always get a little nervous when the protagonist is 14 (and the book is shelved as YA). The potentially objectionable bits in this one are (a) the dad swears a few times and (b) the climber's corpses they run into on the mountain are a little intense.
We did this as a bedtime story (WARNING: It reads more like a shot of 5-Hour Energy than a warm glass of milk). Boy Reader was entranced by the action, but equally drawn to the deeper concepts in the story. His favorite line: "The only thing you'll find on the summit of Mount Everest is a divine view. The things that really matter lie far below."