Amazon Adventure
Author:
Willard Price
Illustrator:
N/A
Published by:
Red Fox
First Published:
1 Jan 1949
Ideal for readers age
9-12y
My Review
I introduced my kids to these books, which my brother and I loved in our early teens, and they went down a storm - pocket money was saved and spent in accumulating the whole set, and they've been read, some of them, until they have fallen apart! The books, of which 'Amazon Adventure' is the first, tell the stories of Hal and Roger Hunt, and their quests to find and bring home dangerous, rare and exotic animals for their father's zoo. Along the way they encounter not only danger from the animals they seek to capture, but villains and perils aplenty from human sources too. These are thrilling, edge-of-your-seat reads for kids who love an adrenaline rush .... and they'll learn an awful lot about animals along the way too! Very much of their time, but none the less brilliant and highly addictive!
Heads Up!
These books were written between 1949 and 1980. As such, there are key things about their plots that are outdated. The whole premise of the series is that Hal and Roger, sons of a famous zoo owner, are sent around the world to capture elusive and desirable animals for their father's enterprise. Obviously completely illegal and outmoded nowadays and not the way zoos are run at all - this might have to be explained to children, although I think mine, who are avid David Attenborough fans, knew this without being told!
Also, The two brother have numerous interactions with remote people groups and there are the typical white supremacist undertones you would expect from fiction written in this era. My kids were able to to read these books, enjoy them immensely, but see the racism for what it is, and I was ok with that. You might not be, so this is your heads up!
Some of the books have pretty scary baddies - I read these in my very early teens and I will tell you that 'Whale Adventure' gave me, a complete shark phobic, nightmares for years - needless to say, I didn't read 'Shark Adventure'....but my kids did!
The newest versions of the books sadly have photographic covers thatI think look pretty cheap and nasty - although your kids might love them! I've always gone for older editions bought secondhand instead - the retro covers also serve as a reminder to my kids that these books were written in another era and that some of the attitudes within them are equally part of history!