Too Wild

I did love The Wild Robot.  But for me, it would have been a great stand-alone.  The Wild Robot Escapes is the sequel and I hope that will be it.  But for people who really enjoy a lot of descriptive action scenes, this might be much more enjoyable.  At first I really liked it but then it just seemed to go overboard with the action scenes.

Hawaii!

I am so close to reading a book set in every state in the US!  This is my Hawaii entry!  I do love the Mysteries in our National Parks series.  I do.  This one just took me a while to get through.  Probably because I had to read it, instead of listening.  But I really did like it!  Rage of Fire is another great addition to the series!  It is set in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Robots in the Wild

If I had a Newbery pick it would be Wild Robot.  This was not (yet) on the list for the goodread group I follow, but I hope it will be, or at least considered.  In addition to being different, totally fresh, well written and pretty much amazing, kids would really enjoy it, too.  

Fiction or Non

Gary Paulsen can do it all.  This Side of Wild:  Mutts, Mares and Laughing Dinosaurs is nonfiction and it is so good!  Is this is memoir?  I think it is.  Maybe?  I am not sure!  In any case, it was really good.  And I learned a lot about animals that I didn't know.  And he just really has a way of description that is perfect.  Not too wordy, but just the right words so that the reader gets the picture. Stephen King?  Have you ever read Gary Paulsen?  The stories about animal communication are the kind that make you go back and read or listen twice.  "What?!"  They seem unbelievable, but Paulsen is just SO believable.  Just great stuff.

Wolves

I remember from reading Twilight that wolves mate for life!  I think they called it "imprinting" in Twilight.  When I read Wolf Stalker, the first in the Mysteries in our National Park series, I was reminded of this.  After reading Cliff-Hanger I had to go back and read more!  This one is set in Yellowstone and is just as good as Cliff-Hanger.
The mystery that is happening in the park has to deal with wolves who are being accused to attaching without being provoked.  And now ranchers and a lot people want to kill the wolves.  But there is a whole wolf restoration project in the park.  The other mystery is with Troy, the Landon's emergency foster placement dude whose mother just disappeared one night.  A really, really good series!

Cliff-Hanger Sans a Cliff-Hanger

In the traditional sense.  Though there were unanswered questions even after Cliff-Hanger, the third book in the Mysteries in Our National Parks series ended.  These books were published by the National Geographic Society.   There is another National Park Mystery series.  I have not read any in that series.  I read this one because in July I am going to Mesa Verde National Park and I am quite excited!  I have only been to one other National Park and that is Acadia.  I have been to a National Historic Site!  I talked about that here.
This book was very good.  Not only did I learn about the park but it also had a good story running along with it.  The series features a brother and a sister, Jack and Ashley, whose mom works for the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole and is often called to places when there are wildlife problems and concerns.  In this book there is a cougar that has attacked a little book in the park.  This is weird because, while it can happen, it is pretty rare.  In the meantime, Jack's family offers emergency foster care and is fostering a 13 year old girl.  She plays Jack like a fine violin.  It is a really well written mystery, I think.  The cover is terrible, of course.  And it is a bit dated, but not too much.  It's hard with technology changing so much.  Totally worth the read.  Totally.  Now I am reading the first one!