Customer Reviews

Mysteries in Our National Parks: Over The Edge

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Highly recommended for young adult readers ages 8-12, Over The Edge is a fun, exciting suspense novel collaborative written by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson, and is the latest entry in the "Mysteries In Our National Parks" series. When Olivia Landon receives a threatening, anonymous e-mail after announcing her disputed plan to save and protect the endangered condors of Grand Canyon National Park, a trail of computer evidence leads to personal peril! Over The Edge is fast-paced read, with the added bonus of slipping in some educational information about one of America's greatest natural parks.

This series of books seems bent on discouraging any American family from ever taking in a foster child. This book is no exception.

The plot is fairly lame - condors at the Grand Canyon are ending up with lead shot poisoning. It turns out they are eating corpses of animals being mass-killed and dumped. Malcolm, the foster child, is a computer hacker, and he works to save the day. But first he posts ugly information about his foster sister. Just lovely.

All through the beginning of the book, Malcolm excuses his rude behavior by saying, "free speech." No, son: Bad manners. Free speech has nothing to do with it. And believe it or not, veterinarians do not propose new gun-control laws in America by holding press conferences. Give me a break.

I bought this book to read to my three boys, ages 8, 10 and 12 during a long drive to the Grand Canyon. It was obvious from the start that "Over the Edge" would be too sophisticated for their age group.

The invited guest in the story "a tall, thin, hollow-chested" 15-year-old society drop-out and computer geek says things like "those intellectual pygmies... The whole town's filled with freaking morons... the only way to fit into Cow Town was to turn into another stupid lemming."

The mother of the story is described as follows "His mother stood, fully dressed in stonewashed jeans and a hooded jacket. Although wrinkles lined the corners of her eyes when she smiled, Olivia looked young and trim. And full of energy."

I do not doubt that this book would be enjoyed by many teens. But the characters and the plot (someone tries to kill Olivia by pushing her over the edge of a cliff) in this book are beyond 8 - 12. Then again, perhaps teens would demand better writing. "It wasn't exactly that he liked Morgan, but he couldn't help being drawn to his... what was it? Maybe his self-assured view of the world acording to Morgan. His braininess."