It was a thousand different colors: lime and emerald and moss and jade and a deep, dark, almost black green that made him think of sunken ships. The greenness, which had seemed such a forbidding wall of color, was not, up close, green at all, Fred thought. With their problems so easily solved, and the mystery effortlessly unveiled, The Explorer fails to give the sense that the children are ever in serious danger, and the lack of intrigue weakens the narrative.ĭespite the unfortunate absence of suspense, Rundell makes up for the bland narrative by occasionally employing vivid language to describe the jungle: Throughout the book, their personalities are cemented any growth or change is infinitesimal.įred and his new friends navigate the jungle with relative ease, stumbling from one convenient resolution to the next. Fred is brave, Lila is smart, Con is a brat, and disobedient Max has an endless supply of snot leaking from his nose. It’s admirable that Rundell has written a story that’s not entirely comprised of white children however, all four children are exceedingly one-dimensional. Before long they discover something that suggests they’re not alone in the jungle. With no hope of being found or getting home, they go in search of food and shelter. The airplane crashes into the canopy of the Amazon jungle, and Fred later wakes in the wreckage to discover that he and three other children are alive but lost. With no hope of rescue, the chance of getting home feels impossibly small.Fred is on a six-seater plane headed to England from Manaus when the pilot stops breathing. He and the three other children may be alive, but the jungle is a vast, untamed place. If only he could land and look about him.Īs the plane crashes into the canopy, Fred is suddenly left without a choice. He has always dreamed of becoming an explorer, of making history and of reading his name amongst the lists of great discoveries.

'Read everything she writes' Daily Mailįrom his seat in the tiny aeroplane, Fred watches as the mysteries of the Amazon jungle pass by below him. 'Rundell is now unarguably in the FIRST RANK' Philip Pullman

Winner of the London Book Fair Children's Travel Book of the Year

Winner of the Costa Children's Book Award 2017 Go on an adventure with Katherine Rundell.

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell