FINISHED:

Gordon, R., and Williams, B. (2008). Tunnels. New York: Chicken House/Scholastic.

[LOOK AT THAT COVER! BRILLIANT!! Now THAT'S an attention grabber!!

Hmm. Liked this one a lot, but there were certainly things that I had problems with. For one, it was a bit too long - it shouldn't have taken me a WEEK to read. Will's father is an archaelogist and runs a small, unattended museum in town, and Will and his father go on digs together, finding small trinkets from days past - antique bottles and the like. Will's father comes into possession of a glowing orb in a metal sphere that seems to react to natural light - getting brighter in the dark and lighter in the day - and soon disappears. Will and a friend, Chester, go down in the basement where Will's father has a workroom and discovers a tunnel behind a bookshelf which leads them to an underground world ruled over by pasty, nasty beings. The two boys are discovered and captured, and as it turns out, Will was originally born down there and his mother went Topsoil (to live above ground) shortly after giving birth. Will gets to leave captivity and live with the brother and uncle he never knew he had and then shortly decides to steal away and get back up to the real world. After getting there, however, Will decides to go BACK underground to rescue Chester who was doomed to be banished to the SUPER underground. SO, what I think could've been edited here is the trip that Will took back up above ground because, as I just mentioned, he ends up going back right away. There's really no good reason for him to go back up home except that his new brother goes with him and doesn't like it there... Could've been edited down. VERY atmospheric, claustrophobic, and intriguing (there's a TRAITOR in the midst that you won't see coming!!) - the title is an acurate one - I'll certainly be checking out the sequel... although I think it's supposed to be even LONGER than this one.

NOTE: some of the stuff that happens at the end is PRETTY DARN GRUESOME - more so than I believe it should be for the intended age group... though, really, it's only a couple of paragraphs out of a whole 472 pages.]

STARTED:
Bode, N.E. (2004). The anybodies. New York: HarperCollins.

[Heard good things about this series and keep seeing them in the library. Drawn to the cover artwork as well...]

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