Customer Reviews

Seekers #5: Fire in the Sky

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading the fourth book in the Seekers Series, "The Last Wilderness", I didn't expect the fifth to be much better. How wrong was I? Fire in the Sky was chock full of action, suspense and even revealed a few secrets fans have been waiting to know the answers to.

In the fifth book, the four companions travel out onto Kallik's territory, the Ice. But the Ice is different from the land, and the Grizzly and black bears soon find themselves thrust into a world of bitter temperatures, dangerous predators, and circumstances they couldn't even imagine. Soon they will have to make a choice, continue on their journey led by a distraught Ujurak, or separate and risk their lives, never to see each other again.

Needless to say Erin Hunter (Victoria Holmes) has outdone herself yet again, and the only complaint I have that this book was the shortest of the series, and needed to be the longest! I'm eagerly and impatiently awaiting the sixth and final book of this series, "Spirits in the Stars".

Kallik is a young polar bear living in the frigid north with her mom and brother. She knows she has a lot to learn before she will be able to survive on her own. However, she isn't too worried as long as she has her mom to keep her safe and fed. But then comes the accident. Suddenly on her own, Kallik struggles to survive.

Lusa is a young black bear who has lived her entire life in a zoo. She hasn't had too many worries, as the fences keep her safe from predators, and the zoo keepers feed her every day. And then she makes a promise to a dying friend, a risky promise that requires her to escape the zoo fences. She cleverly manages to do just that. Suddenly on her own, Lusa struggles to survive.

Toklo is a young grizzly bear living near the mountains with his mom and sickly brother. When his brother dies, his mom is so overcome with grief, she chases Toklo away from her. Suddenly on his own, Toklo struggles to survive.

Ujurak is another young brown bear with a few unique talents, including the ability to change shape into other animals. He also receives dreams and can read signs from the spirits. On his own, Ujurak struggles to survive.

These four young bear cubs stumble into each other's lives and manage to form a unique family all their own. They rely on one another for survival and love as they struggle to complete their quest --- a search for a new home. But they encounter many obstacles and dangers in their path, including all of the sicknesses the wild is suffering, mostly from the hands of humans.

Now that the four bears have reached the Last Wilderness, they can attempt to settle down and live their separate lives like normal bears. However, past attempts at living on their own resulted in loneliness and danger. Besides, Ujurak feels the pull of their quest, which is their desperate need to save the planet. And the spirit signals are telling him that their journey continues out in the ocean on the Everlasting Ice. While Toklo and Lusa are a bit nervous to attempt survival in such a foreign environment, Kallik is thrilled to be returning to the familiar ice and is confident that she can take care of her friends. So the four slip into the freezing waters and swim out to a frozen land.

But life on the ice turns out to be even harder than they expected. All except Kallik are having trouble even just walking on the slippery surface. And Toklo can't stand not being in control as the leader and the provider of food. When he decides to take matters into his own paws, he ends up falling through the ice into the frigid and deadly waters below. Ujurak quickly changes form into a whale in attempts to save him. Unfortunately, when this transformation occurs, he has trouble remembering that he is really a bear and risks losing himself in the new animal form. The bears and their quest would suffer greatly if any one of the group left or was lost. And then Lusa starts getting sick.

Toklo decides that he should take Lusa back to land, and the friends make the difficult decision to split into two groups. But then both groups run into even more problems when they encounter the humans yet again. Damages from an oil well are leaching into the water and air, affecting everyone. The bears face yet another rescue attempt when the humans shoot Lusa with a tranquilizer dart and take her captive. Their desperate journey to save the wilderness continues to offer huge obstacles and heart-pounding danger.

Once again, Erin Hunter's obvious love of and respect for nature shines through the pages. Her beautiful descriptions of the wilderness seize readers with chills, placing them right in the middle of the action. Like the others in the Seekers series, FIRE IN THE SKY rocks with lots of action and suspense; exploring the new environment of the Everlasting Ice offers additional dangers and adventures for our heroes to overcome. Readers will also learn a bit more about the mysterious Ujurak and his background. Hunter has created vivid and colorful characters with the bears, who have quickly become like dear friends to fans. She has many other amazing writing gifts, one of which is being able to look at a situation from all angles, from each character's eyes. This gives each new adventure many unique views and only heightens the excitement for the sixth installment, SPIRITS IN THE STARS, due out in February 2011.

This was an even better book than the last, with a great environmental message! I highly recommend this series!

The Seekers-series get better and better book by book! In the fifth book, the four companions travel out onto Kallik's territory, the Ice.Ice is very different from the land, and the Grizzly and black bears soon find themselves thrust into a world of icy-bitter temperatures, evil and hungry predators, and facing hardship that they couldn't have ever even imagined. They have to make a decision: either to continue their journey with Ujurak, or separate and risk their lives.

These bears are devoted to each other and also to their mission, despite some grave doubts, and facing difficult situations.

This was so heartbreaking, and exciting story!
The author has created an interesting bear world and animal action&adventure series.
Erin Hunter is actually many different writers, and not just one person. The author has written three sets of Warrior cat -books, and several separate Warrior stories to tell the background stories of the clan cats.
I would recommend "Warriors: Omen of the Stars: The Fourth Apprentice" to children/YA/adults who like cats, action and adventure. Other similar books besides the Warrior -series, that the readers might like is the new Animellis Island -series.

I purchased this item for my 11 year old granddaughter. She is very excited about reading again. I reccomend this to anyone who needs to motivate a child to read.

As some of you may have noticed, I wasn't very impressed with the last book in this series "The Last Wilderness". The extreme preachiness seems toned down a bit in this newer novel, and the racial overtones are also muted although still present to a degree.

I was glad to see some good humans that actually are working to help the wildlife.

Some weaknesses in this book include the fact that I don't think that the brown bears Toklo and Ujurak or the black bear Lusa would be able to survive in Kallik's world as long as they do. They just don't have the right kind of fur or layer of fat to be able to stay warm there. Even with a warm snow den to crawl into when they sleep, the Arctic is just too cold for those types of bears to survive for long.

Christian parents might want to let their kids know that the spirituality in the book is not really compatible with their religion. It teaches about nature spirits which is more New Age in nature.

On to the strong points. This adventure was much more exciting than the last book. Ujurak's inner struggles with his power play an important role in the story. Lusa fights off a mysterious ailment which threatens to put the whole quest at risk, if not her life. Toklo has a hard time handing the reigns of leadership over to Kallik, which causes some tension with his usual grumpiness thrown in for good measure. Kallik struggles to protect and provide for her friends, and feels the weight of that burden with every step. Perhaps most menacing of all, Toklo receives an ominous prophecy.

On top of their inner struggles, the environment provides its own set of challenges, the cold and hunger being two of the least worrisome.

Overall I think this is a great addition to the series.

it is the best book of the seires yet. i love it but i cant what for the next one yet.

good book but one problem-we dont have oil everywhere in the world. it was bad enough but its gotten worse. at least she finally added some good humans. otherwise it was great.

I thought that this book was the best of the series so far! It has shocking twists and some questions i had from the previous books were answered! The one little negitive comment i have is that it was the shortest of all of the books! But over all worth the money! :)