Jungle of Bones - Softcover

Mikaelsen, Ben

3.87

812 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0545442869 ISBN 13: 9780545442862

Publisher: Scholastic Inc., 2015

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Dylan Barstow has finally crossed the line. After getting caught on a late-night joyride in a stolen car, Dylan is shipped off to live with his ex-Marine uncle for the summer. But Uncle Todd has bigger plans for Dylan than push-ups and early-morning jogs.

Deep in the steamy jungles of Papua New Guinea, there's a WWII fighter plane named Second Ace that's been lost for years, a plane that Dylan's own grandfather barely escaped from with his life. In all this time, no one has ever been able to track down Second Ace -- but now Dylan and his uncle are going to try.

Lush and haunted, vital and deadly, these alien jungles half a world away could mean Dylan's salvation, or they could swallow him whole.

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About the Author:

Ben Mikaelsen has won the International Reading Association Award and the Western Writers Golden Spur Award. His novels have won critical acclaim, as well as several state reader's choice awards. These novels include Rescue Josh McGuire, Sparrow Hawk Red, Stranded, Countdown, Petey, and Touching Spirit Bear. Ben's articles and photos appear in numerous magazines around the world. Ben and his wife, Connie, live in a log cabin near Bozeman, Montana, and they adopted a 700-pound black bear that they raised for 27 years.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5–8—Dylan Barstow steals a junkyard car for a joyride, landing him in jail, and exasperating his widowed mom. The seventh grader is sent off with Uncle Todd, who is assembling a search team to find Second Ace, Grandpa Henry's B-17 bomber that crashed in the jungles of Papua New Guinea (PNG) during World War II. Dylan's own journalist father died in Darfur, on a peacekeeping mission, and he has yet to come to terms with the loss. The protagonist begins reading Grandpa Henry's journal that chronicles the Japanese aerial attack on Second Ace, and learns that a trek to PNG promises malaria, headhunters, crocs, snakes, and rats-plus an airplane wreck with the probable bones of his grandfather's crewmen. Despite Todd's patience with his nephew, the boy flushes his malaria pills down the toilet and is antagonistic toward the search team. Dylan wanders too far away from camp, and his irresponsibility is the beginning of a survival tale rivaling Grandpa Henry's own. In scenes reminiscent of the his Touching Spirit Bear (HarperCollins, 2001), Mikaelsen calls up native spirits. In this case "Kanzi" appears as a young girl who guides Dylan to the plane wreckage and keep him safe, albeit suffering from malaria, leeches, and gangrene. Dylan's attitude adjustment is predictable, but not too maudlin, and is offset by realistic skepticism from Uncle Todd. The details of war and jungle dangers will make this a good addition to middle grade adventure survival collections.—Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortland

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