Peak - Roland Smith

I just listened to this newest Roland Smith novel on CD, and I really enjoyed it. It's the story of Peak Marcello (yes, his crazy mountain climbing parents really did name him Peak!) who gets into a little trouble with the law over some skyscraper climbing in New York City. Apparently some people don't think imitating Spiderman is such a great idea...

So Peak can either go to a juvenile detention facility or go to Thailand with his dad - who he hasn't heard from, incidentally, in about 7 years. Well, it's not really a choice, is it? So off he goes to "Thailand." Or, actually, to Mt. Everest. Turns out his dad's mountain climbing guiding business is in a little financial trouble, and he intends to have Peak climb Mt. Everest to give things a little jump-start. Peak, you see, would be the youngest person to ever climb Mt. Everest if he makes it. A VERY big if. But a VERY big deal if he actually does make it.

At first I was thinking this was insane. Well, actually I still think it was insane, but I was thinking that it would be impossible for such a young person to climb Mt. Everest and survive. Many grown-ups don't make it. How could a kid do it? Turns out, a very few kids HAVE done it, so I was wrong. Knowing that, I was better able to accept the story, and I thought it was really interesting.

There were many suspenseful moments in this novel for sure, and I think kids are really going to like it. It's been chosen as an Oregon Battle of the Books book for next year, and I'm very excited to announce that we will be hosting Roland Smith as a guest author at our school next February as well. We have several copies of this book, so come on down and check it out!