Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things [Hardcover]

Wendelin Van Draanen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2007 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Sammy Keyes

Sammy Keyes trades in her hightops for hiking boots—and winds up with blisters.

This is not the summer camping trip of Sammy's dreams. She imagined shady glades, meandering streams, a deer or two. What she gets are scrubby shrubs, blazing sun, rattlesnakes, ticks, and scorpions. Her fellow campers are desperate to catch a rare glimpse of an endangered condor. To Sammy, the trip is nothing more than the painful in pursuit of the unspeakably ugly.

But when she and two other girls find an injured condor, Sammy's intrigued at last. As they track down a clue, they stumble onto two classmates and wind up lost. Which leaves three girls and two boys in a canyon with one tent and six billion biting flies. Oh—and an armed and dangerous highstakes poacher.

S'mores anyone?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—Readers familiar with this series won't be disappointed in this latest installment. Sammy joins forces with some eco-nutty Girl Scouts and heads to the hills for an outing where they find more than they had bargained for, including scorpions, poison oak, and biting flies. Add to the mix an injured condor and Sammy sets her sight on solving a mystery laced with facts about the near-extinction of this very large, and very ugly, bird. Fans will recognize recurring plots as Sammy, who lives with her grandma in a seniors' complex, tries to keep her own family life a secret while learning how a local television newscaster is secretly connected to poachers, campers, and a crazy-eyed taxidermist. New friends add interest, and quick-witted banter makes this a fast-paced joyride of a read. Think a combination of Carl Hiaasen's Flush (Knopf, 2005) and Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" books (St. Martin's) and you'll be right on target. A perfect summer reading choice.—Cheryl Ashton, Amherst Public Library, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Far from middle school and shopping malls, Sammy Keyes explores new territory in the eleventh title in the winning series about the smart, brave, young sleuth. Sammy is surprised to find herself on a Girl Scout camping trip to save the endangered condor. She is not one of those boring, "goody-goody" conservationists. But despite herself, she gets drawn into solving the mystery: Who shot the baby bird and kidnapped its mother? Was it the developers who want the wilderness land? Was it a poacher who will get a fortune for the rare species? The close-up details of the wilderness trek are part of the story--heat, thirst, bugs, rattlesnakes, tracking devices, blisters, and more--in fact, Sammy's poison-oak itch turns out to be a brilliant clue. Series fans will welcome the mix of Sammy's detective work with her personal issues, including a budding romance with the brother of her archenemy. And many readers will be drawn by the nonpreachy struggle to save the "awesome" creature from extinction. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; Complete Numbers Starting with 1, 1st Ed edition (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375835253
• ISBN-13: 978-0375835254
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Through writing, I open up my heart and soul in ways I never could in everyday life. The joy, the pain, the wonder and loneliness I felt in growing up, meld into stories which I hope will help kids believe in themselves and have compassion for those around them."--Wendelin Van Draanen

Wendelin Van Draanen is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Children's Mystery Book for Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief. Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes is a 2003 Edgar Award nominee.


Visit Wendelin Van Draanen's Web site at www.wendelinvandraanen.com for the lastest on The Gecko and Sticky, Sammy Keyes, Shredderman, and more!

How in the world did I wind up writing a book about a kleptomaniacal, talking gecko lizard? I'm the first to admit-talking animals are not my thing. First person, realistic fiction-that's what I like. And yet, after Sticky appeared as a sidekick television character in my Shredderman series and uttered his first "Holy guaco-tacarole!" I was hooked. He's so funny. And so full of mischief.
I always develop a backstory for my characters to get to know them. Even if they're secondary characters, I have to understand their background and motivations before I let them into the story. The premise of the third Shredderman book (Meet the Gecko) is that a television crew comes to town to shoot an episode, and Shredderman helps out the star of the show. Not wanting to deal with the legal complications of using a real television show, I made up my own: The Gecko and Sticky. In the process, I came up with the hero (Dave Sanchez-a boy who has the "superpower" of being able to walk up walls, and is known as the Gecko), the sidekick (Sticky who is, as you already know, a talking gecko with . . . h'hem, sticky fingers), the villain (the deadly, diabolical, and definitely demented Damien Black), and Damien's sidekicks (the Bandito Brothers, who are, in fact, not brothers, but a thieving mariachi band).
It was definitely wilder than anything I'd come up with before, but hey-it was just a made-up TV show, right?
Ah, how diabolically infectious made-up TV shows can be!
Sticky, you see, got under my skin. His "Ay-ay-ay"s and his "What the jalapeno was that?" and his "You cut me to the quick, senor" enchanted me, and I was sorry when his role in the Shredderman books was over.
After the Shredderman quartet was complete, I began getting lots of fan mail from kids (and teachers) asking me to please write more Shredderman books. It was tempting, because I love Nolan and the gang. But I'd completed my mission with the quartet; so instead, I started writing The Gecko and Sticky.
My first attempt resulted in an over 200-page manuscript. That was closer to a Sammy Keyes novel than a Shredderman book. So I hacked it up, threw it out, and started all over.
My next try had me at 150 pages-still too long, and something about it wasn't quite right. So I chucked it and asked myself what in the world I was thinking, writing in the voice of a lizard.
But then on a flight from New York to California, I started hearing a voice. It wasn't my voice. Or the guy snoring in the seat beside me. It was, you know, a voice. One in my head.
Yeah, we writers hear them, and although we will almost certainly deny it if you press us about it, we also listen. It's how I wrote Swear to Howdy; how Bryce appeared in Flipped; where Holly's poems came from in Runaway . . . and it's how the narrator took over the storytelling for The Gecko and Sticky.
It's a man's voice in my head. (Okay, I concede that I might need some help.) But he's funny as all get-out, and I like to listen to him. He's the voice of someone who loves the art of storytelling; of someone who will hold a child's wide-eyed attention as he shares the wild antics of a boy and his mischievous gecko; of someone I'd plead, "Just one more chapter, please?"
So I hope that explains it, because I really must go. He's talking to me again and I've got to get back to Dave and Sticky. They are, after all, in the midst of some deep, diabolical doo-doo . . .

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Sammy Keyes, July 24, 2007

By 

Book Lover for Life "Jeanie" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things (Hardcover)

Every summer I look forward to reading the new Sammy Keyes book by Wendelin Van Draanen. Her first five Sammy books were amazing. The children in my classroom love them. I wasn't thrilled with the next three, particularly Snake Eyes. I kept those three in the drawer because I was worried about the lamguage and the level of violence in them. With this book, Van Draanen has returned to creative plot twists and language more suitable for my elementary students. Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things will definitely have a spot on my classroom bookshelf. I couldn't put it down! Appropriate for ages 8+

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair warning: start this book and you may well not be able to do anything else until you've finished it!, June 11, 2007

By 

KidsReads (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things (Hardcover)

Sammy Keyes's friends leave town for the summer, except for the ever-fascinating Casey, who Sammy runs into in the sporting goods store at the mall. He and his buddy Billy are gearing up to go backpacking. Casey invites Sammy, who has never even been camping. Sammy is intrigued but turns him down because of that ridiculous girl/boy thing, which she heartily resents.

But then she runs into a girl from school named Cricket. Although Sammy barely knows her, she lets Cricket persuade her to go camping with her Scout group, who regularly hike out to a condor-monitoring station to count condors. The troop leader, Robin, signs Sammy up (although Sammy is already in the throes of serious misgivings). Cricket blathers on and on about Robin's adorable, smart, passionate-about-condors nephew, Quinn, while Sammy tries unsuccessfully to back out of the camping expedition. What has she done?

Sammy meets Cricket's butterfly-collecting brother Gary, who lives in front of the computer. She discovers that their mother died and their dad is a workaholic. Sammy feels terribly for Cricket and can't hurt her feelings, so she's stuck for sure with the dreaded camping trip. But, after all, it's only four days --- plus, the entire camping experience will give her something in common with Casey.

As the trip starts, though, it's more nightmarish than Sammy ever could have dreamed. The Scouts are wacky, infighting eco-maniacs who casually mention lurking rattlesnakes, mean wild boars, ticks carrying Lyme disease and enormous scorpions. Sammy is also not impressed with college student Vargus and his major attitude, whom she meets when he almost crashes his jeep into their van.

Sammy can't believe the agony of Borrowed Hiking Boot Blister Syndrome and the horrible fact that drinking water is limited. Is she in camping hell? But Sammy comes into her own when the group finds the lookout trashed and then, later, an injured condor. Sammy recognizes a mystery, even out in the wilderness --- and solving it just may make the camping trip worthwhile after all.

Breathless adventure, a funny fish-out-of-water plot, a truly puzzling mystery, realistic characters, lots of fascinating nature facts and a bit of subtle romance --- not to mention Sammy's trademark wisecracking voice --- all add up to yet another truly excellent mystery in Wendelin Van Draanen's Sammy Keyes series.

Fair warning: start this book and you may well not be able to do anything else until you've finished it!

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cool Your Heels with Sammy Keyes and The Wild Things, May 29, 2007

By 

Julie M. Prince "Professional Reviewer of Boo... - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things (Hardcover)

This is the first Sammy Keyes book I've read, but I definitely plan to read more now!

Sammy's character is endearing because she's strong and capable while still being vulnerable. Especially to the guy she's crushing on and her ditzy mother.

Watching Sammy try to figure out what's so great about a big ugly bird and why it's important to "save the condors" is hilarious!

"Cool your heels" with this great Sammy Keyes book and you'll soon figure out why that expression has me giggling.