We Are Not Eaten by Yaks

Gr 4—7—Eleven-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel hate adventures or going anywhere, and would prefer to watch hours and hours of television. Unfortunately, their parents are world-renowned explorers and live on the 4 ½ floor of the Explorers Club in New York City, so the children don't have much choice about going on great excursions. Their mother disappeared months ago while attempting to locate lost tablets from the library at Alexandria. To make matters worse, their father bets an Explorers Club board member that he can find his wife and make one of the greatest discoveries known to mankind: finding Shangri-la. At the club, the twins overhear a conversation about destroying their father, and they attempt to warn him. One thing leads to another, and the three Navels travel to Nepal in search of the children's missing mother. Somehow everything goes awry, and the action becomes nonstop. The three of them are ejected from a plane without a parachute, meet a Lama and a few monks, and the adventures keep coming. While there's quite a bit of repetition about the children's addiction to television, and some of the situations are over-the-top, London establishes a quick pace and provides plenty of wit and humor.—Patty Saidenberg, George Jackson Academy, New York City