|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
|
Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
Fred is on a six-seater plane headed to England from Manaus when the pilot stops breathing. The airplane crashes into the canopy of the Amazon jungle, and Fred later wakes in the wreckage to discover that he and three other children are alive but lost. With no hope of being found or getting home, they go in search of food and shelter. Before long they discover something that suggests they’re not alone in the jungle . . . It’s admirable that Rundell has written a story that’s not entirely comprised of white children; however, all four children are exceedingly one-dimensional. Fred is brave, Lila is smart, Con is a brat, and disobedient Max has an endless supply of snot leaking from his nose. Throughout the book, their personalities are cemented; any growth or change is infinitesimal.Fred and his new friends navigate the jungle with relative ease, stumbling from one convenient resolution to the next. With their problems so easily solved, and the mystery effortlessly unveiled, The Explorer fails to give the sense that the children are ever in serious danger, and the lack of intrigue weakens the narrative. Despite the unfortunate absence of suspense, Rundell makes up for the bland narrative by occasionally employing vivid language to describe the jungle: The greenness, which had seemed such a forbidding wall of color, was not, up close, green at all, Fred thought. It was a thousand different colors: lime and emerald and moss and jade and a deep, dark, almost black green that made him think of sunken ships. The ground was mossy, speckled with patches of grass and creeper. One of the trees had scarlet flowers, which had fallen and red-carpeted the forest floor. With peripheral characters and brisk plot-pacing, The Explorer is an unremarkable tale of friendship and discovery.
