Island of Thieves

Recommending authors to students can feel like hopscotch at times. They might latch onto one author such as Gary Paulsen, consume the shelf of twenty-plus books, then eagerly bounce around waiting for another great recommendation, like a puppy wanting a treat. I can't resist puppies and I don't want......more

This book is SO Much Fun. I mean, really. Kid convinces his uncle to take him along to South America on a quest to find an ancient stash of gold. There's a little bit of history, there's gunplay with the mob, there's a burned down shed... What else could you want in a middle school adventure read? I......more

Tom Trelawney's parents have just dumped him with an uncle he hardly knows. But Uncle Harvey is planning a trip to Peru to follow a treasure map he's just uncovered. Tom talks his way into the trip, but they have hardly landed when they run afoul of the most notorious crook in the country. Can they......more

I really like the idea of writing a book about finding lost treasure because that seems like the plot of a lot of movies out there. The author made it seem like a James Bond movie with the crime organization in Peru, finding clues to approximate the area of the treasure, and eventually escaping the......more