Wild Man Island

April 1, 2002
Fans of Will Hobbs's wilderness adventure novels will welcome his Wild Man Island. Its hero, 14-year-old Andy Galloway, kayaks his way through an Alaskan strait and ends up on Admiralty Island on a quest inspired by the death of his archeologist father.

May 1, 2002
Gr 5-9-Set in contemporary Alaska, this adventure yarn follows 14-year-old Andy as he nears the safe conclusion of a guided sea kayaking trip with the nagging thought that he ought to visit the nearby site of his father's accidental death nine years earlier. Sneaking off from the group on the last day, he is soon blown away by a nasty storm. Washed ashore on wild and remote Admiralty Island, he faces starvation, food poisoning, cold, bears, wolves, and the mysterious bearded giant of a man he calls "the Wild Man." Neatly tying together strands of the plot involving his archaeologist father's theories about the early exploration and settlement of North America with episodes that involve caving, wildlife, and a huge Newfoundland dog, Hobbs resolves the story's complexities in ways that protect the characters' integrity and, to a large extent, readers' need for credibility. The author's note explains the mixture of personal experience and collected facts and fictions on which the book hangs in such a way that interested readers might well be persuaded to speculate about the theories posited or investigate those theories with additional research of their own.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2002
Gr. 7-10. Readers choosing any of Hobbs' books can expect a fast-paced plot laced with danger; a physically challenging setting, and a resourceful hero who invariably finds the means to honorably extricate himself from a difficult situation. This is no exception" . "When 14-year-old Andy slips away from his Alaskan Adventure kayaking group, he believes he has planned his escape carefully. He's an experienced kayaker, and his destination, the place where his father died nine years ago, is only two miles away. He reaches the falls and leaves a tribute for his father, but disaster strikes on his return trip when a sudden storm blows him off course. His kayak is upset by sea lions, and he must go ashore in a vast wilderness, where he encounters wolves, a maze of unexplored caves loaded with ancient artifacts, and a mysterious wild man who may hold the key to his rescue. The survival story is the real attention grabber, but Hobbs offers more than just solid entertainment; he also provides a wealth of information about early human migration in North America.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2002
Fourteen-year-old Andy, on a southeast-Alaska kayaking vacation, sets off to find the spot where his father had years earlier fallen to his death. A sudden gale sweeps his kayak onto the inhospitable shores of Admiralty Island. A Newfoundland dog leads him to a mysterious cave inhabited by a "wild man." This well-paced, believable survival adventure story is enhanced by a map and an author's note.

(Copyright 2002 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)