Solid Gold Kid, The (Paperback)

by Norma Mazer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Sixteen-year-old Derek Chapman is the only son of a self-made millionaire who leads the privileged life his father has planned for him. But when he and four other teenagers are kidnapped, he makes important discoveries about himself and others. Previously published by Dell.

From the Publisher
What he's dreaded most has finally happened....

Kidnapped. It's a word that sixteen-year-old Derek Chapman is afraid to even think, but the reality of it is beginning to sink in. He'd been standing at the bus stop in the rain with four other kids-strangers-when the van came along, and they'd hitched a ride to escape the storm.

Derek knows he is the only one the kidnappers really care about--he's the son of a self-made millionaire, and now he has a price on his head. The others, two guys and two girls, just had the bad luck to follow him into the van. Although Derek is the target of the kidnappers, the danger is real for all of them. Even if the criminals get the ransom money, will all the victims be set free?

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Starfire (April 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553278517
• ISBN-13: 978-0553278514
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,043,899 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You'll love this realistic book!, December 3, 2001

By A Customer

Review by Casey
If you like realistic stories, you will love The Solid Gold Kid by Norma and Harry Mazer.
Sixteen year old Derek Chapman, who lives in Central Park South in New York City, the son of a millionaire banker. Derek likes to take the 12:22 pm bus to the youth center in town. On one rainy, April, Saturday afternoon, Derek was at the bus stop with four other kids and they were all getting soaked. A van pulled up with a man and a woman in it and Derek asked, "Give me a ride downtown?"(p. 11) The people in the van gave them a ride. Derek and the other kids thought that the man and woman were just being nice but they were really kidnappers waiting to kidnap Derek. Will Derek and the other kids get out of this situation alive?
I liked the realism of the story because this story could really happen. I also liked how fast the plot went. The plot kept speeding up for the majority of the story.
I think that the story had great characters. Two of my favorite characters were Wendy and Derek. Wendy had come up with a great idea on how to get out of the fire lookout tower. They were trapped in a fire lookout tower and the trap door was tied with chains from the outside. "You'll let me down on the rope about ten or twelve feet, that's all. I don't have to go all the way to the ground. I just have to get a good swing going, swing out and then back in through the iron struts. I'll grab on to one of the struts and climb over to the stairs and untie those chains." (p.143)
I liked Derek because he thought of everybody before himself and wanted the others to live and not get hurt. He tried to make the best out of a horrible situation. For example, when Wendy came up with the idea to escape from the fire lookout Derek said, "No it is just risky, what if the line breaks you could die." (p. 144)
This is a very serious story. What happened in the book could happen in real life. In the story, people were shot, beaten, punched, and burned.
The language that the author used was very easy to understand except for the times when Derek was talking to himself. For example, "Stay calm, Derek. Think. They want to kill you, but you want to live. You are going to live, you're going to live, you're going to live, you hear me, you're going to fight. Fight. Not dead till proved dead. Think. What are you going to do?" (p. 161-162). When I read the story, I thought that someone was saying that out loud.
The book was pretty good except I didn't like the ending. During the whole story, there was alot of action that led up to the climax. After the climax, the story slowed. I think the ending wasn't necessary to the story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars more than just a kidnapping story, April 1, 1998

By A Customer

The Solid Gold Kid was a little slow and contained some unnecessary details in the first chapter, but after that, I couldn't put the book down. In the last 25% of the book, Mazer and Mazer gave a powerful and realistic account of the psychological effects of having been kidnapped. This gave the book more meaning and separates it from other "typical" kidnapping stories.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mazer and Mazer writing is great, June 23, 2000

By A Customer

The book is so unusual for a kidnapping story but it is so good. I picked it up and couldn't put it down until I had completly finished it. I have read it twice since then and it just as good the second and third times. I live in Silicon Valley and go to what a lot of people would consider a school for preppies, so I know that the character of Derek Chapman is so realistic. The last part of the book was so full of the realism of the shock of surviving a kidnpping, I had to look up while I was reading it to make sure that I was still me and that I was still at home.