The Hunted by Skurzynski and Ferguson

I gave this book a rating of four out of five. It's a National Geographic Society book, which made me first think that it would have a bunch of information and a dull story. However, the plot actually was quite interesting and developed several conflicts. The story revolves around a family camping in Montana in a national park. The mother is an expert on grizzly bears and is trying to help the rangers figure out why young cubs are missing from the park. Dad is a photographer, so he's off taking pictures of nature. Meanwhile, the kids discover a young Mexican boy has hidden in their camper and is trying to get to Seattle to live with a woman he knows. The boy was on the national news, and he's been caught twice before. The kids must figure out what to do with this young boy, they then discover what's happening to the bear cubs, and then they finally must try to survive the attack of an angry mother bear. The caption under a picture in the book reads, "No animal on Earth is more dangerous than a mother bear protecting her cubs."

I felt the beginning of the book was a little slow, and there was quite a bit of the brother/sister arguing that goes on during long family vacations. You find out later why the sister is so testy and why she becomes so secretive. The story got more interesting when the kids discovered the Mexican boy, and it became more suspenseful when they found out what was happening to the bear cubs. The climax even had a little surprise that I wasn't expecting. The story was interesting, and I wanted more once I got to the end of the book.

Lexile level from lexile.com 760