Once in a while, you just happen to stumble onto a book that was written for young people but that you can’t put down. Book Scavenger is one of those.
Emily. aged 12, has just moved to San Francisco with her parents and older brother. They move a lot, as her parents have a goal to live in all 50 US states.
Her favourite pastime is a game that combines the seek & find thrill of geocaching, with the brain challenge of puzzles & ciphers, and the love of reading. It’s a game called Book Scavenger. Basically, you look up a book near you on the website, figure out an encoded clue to discover where the book is hidden, and go find it. When you hide or find a book, you get points – which count towards your skill level rating.
First off – let me say that I think this game needs to come to life, because it’s brilliant. I would love to see people hunting around, secretly looking for books hidden in places. How fun would that be, and what a creative way to foster a love of learning.
The story itself is about Emily, and the boy next door – James, after they find a special book near where the creator of the Book Scavenger, Garrison Griswold, had been attacked in the subway station. They soon realize that this book is special. It’s the book that has the clues to start Mr. Griswold’s brand new game. It’s time to start figuring out the puzzles.
I started reading this book aloud to my 7 and 9 year old, but they found it hard to follow – partly I think because the book is detailed and heavy on the ciphers and puzzles, which are hard to always explain. It’s also a pretty complex book – not a light fluffy read, but detailed and elaborate. I don’t think it lent itself well to a read aloud kind of story. And besides, that wasn’t going fast enough. I had to read faster. It was too enjoyable to take slowly!
Before you or your child start reading this book, I’d recommend that you first do a few word/cipher puzzles to help make things easier to understand. I admit I was a little thrown off when ciphering started almost right away in the story because I wasn’t fully sure what they were doing. I think an explanation and/or attempt to do some yourself would be a great introduction to the story. I loved that while the book doesn’t contain many images, that when needed to explain a complex cipher, there are visual aids to show you what you need to know.
After reading the story, I happened to start checking out the websites that were featured on the book jacket, especially bookscavenger.com. Not surprisingly, this site is a place where people can hide their copy of Book Scavenger and post a clue to where it’s hidden so others can find it. Creative marketing plan! Love it. (Although I think I’m going to keep my copy. At least until the boys get a chance to read it themselves!)
It is here, too, that I learned there is a website called Book Crossing which was a big inspiration to the author while she was developing the game. People are already hiding and finding books all around the world. I think that is amazing.
This book was thrilling, enjoyable, well-written, and left you trying to figure out what was next. Even the ending was unexpected. The author, Jennifer Chambliss Bertman has done an excellent job of developing characters that you feel you understand and know, of making the emotions of being 12 real and alive, of making you have to think – to try and solve all the clues and mystery, of making you want to keep reading. If this is only her first book, I can’t wait to read more by her.
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