(Harding-Pencroft Academy guide, cast list) (Final illustrations not seen.)Ī riveting novel that will have readers rooting for its star. Ana is of Bundeli Indian descent, and her group of peers, who are diverse in various ways, experience losses and struggles of their own. A foreword by Roshani Chokshi introduces this adventure that is both great entertainment and centers a well-developed protagonist who is thoughtfully shown dealing with loss. As Ana and her classmates discover that the events depicted in Jules Verne’s classic novels were real, Riordan’s lifelong love of the source material is clear-especially when Ana learns information that will help her find a way to protect the group. While her group is out on the water for their trials, Harding-Pencroft is demolished in an attack orchestrated by a rival school. Though Ana’s brother, Dev, is a senior, what happens at trials is such a closely guarded secret that no one in her year knows what to expect.

Students who fail to showcase their survival skills are asked to leave the academy, a heavily guarded place Ana has thought of as home since the mysterious deaths of her parents.

It’s clear there will be a third installment, which may help to clarify what all the fuss is about…or not.Ī teenager faces seemingly insurmountable challenges in this riveting modern-day spinoff of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.įor Ana Dakkar and her fellow ninth graders at Harding-Pencroft Academy, there is nothing more momentous than the weekend trials each student must ace at the end of freshman year. However, the adventure remains murky and not all that intriguing, although the brief attempts at humor help to move the story forward. Leo’s character has matured, and this sequel is better than its predecessor. The result is an immediate departure for the deep jungles of Borneo, where he finds a lot more than he bargained for. Leo finally agrees to help find a missing tribal mask but only if Crane agrees to finance a search in Antarctica to find out what really happened to Leo’s parents.

It doesn’t matter that Leo wants no part of it Uncle Crane will force his compliance by separating him from his younger brother, his school and all his friends. Uncle Crane is determined to use Leo to his own ends, counting on Leo to find rare objects of antiquity that he can convert to hard currency. Leo Lomax and his brother, Hollis, were first introduced in Sound Bender (2011), in which Leo discovered how to experience other dimensions simply by touching key objects. Newly orphaned, forced to live with an uncle he never knew he had and trying to cope with a strange new ability to hear the past, Leo’s suffering more than normal teen angst.

Return of the shadow