Mountain Blizzard

The kids went through their suitcases. They pulled out all the scarves, hats, mittens, sweaters, and long underwear their mother had packed. Now, they didn't care how they looked. "Do you think Mom knew this would happen?" Pam asked. "Are you kidding?" Aaron asked. "When has 'this' ever NOT 'happened' when we travel with Dad?" OK, I made up that last part, but regular readers know what to expect when the Barclay family is on the scene! "And mountain lions are very strong--especially their legs and jaws. But, luckily, they rarely attack people." I don't know about you, but I'M betting that SOMETIME during this adventure, they WILL! Ed Hanson and Saddleback Educational Publishing have come up with a brilliant concept for solving a very serious problem: the great decline in reading among today's students. Their solution? Put out readers that are essentially suspense-filled or mystery-filled juvenile series books like the famous Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys series of old. This confronts both of the major problems with more traditional readers: if they are not mind-numbingly dull, they are excruciatingly didactic, cramming some important "teachings" whether moral, religious, or (these days) politically correct down the throats of children so hard as to turn them off of reading for good. In this volume Ed Hanson takes another big step forward. Besides giving us a truly suspenseful story of blizzard survival, we are seeing more real character development and strong hints that the ENTIRE Barclay family might soon reunite. Think of the consequences for the travel insurance industry! Plus, for what they are intended to be, reading textbooks, they are wonderful. The fact that children who learn to read better and to love reading from these books may still find them skimpy fare for pleasure reading is not entirely bad, assuming their teachers quickly move them on to bigger and better things in the school library or the bookstore if necessary. The previous book in the series is Lost at Sea (Barclay Family Adventure Ser., Bk. 6), and the next book in the series is Tornado (Barclay Family Adventure Ser., Bk. 8).