The Secret Explorers and the Smoking Volcano

My son is 6 years old and absolutely loves these books. We read them to him at night before bed, 1 chapter a night. There are several different characters the stories focus on and he loves them all. Great adventure series and fun to read for adults as well. If you are trying to take a step up in reading besides your normal picture books or short stories, I highly recommend this series!

My granddaughter really enjoyed this book and I enjoyed reading it to her.

My grandson loves the secret explorers

My daughter loves whole series.

In all the other books up till now in this series, two children who are each experts in a particular subject go on a secret mission. One is an expert in a field that you’d expect given the nature of the mission, and one is someone unexpected. And in every other book, their expertise gives them the knowledge and the skills to solve a problem relevant to their fields. Both kids contribute in big meaningful ways, by using their knowledge about their topic. Until this one.In this volcano one, although volcano facts are scattered occasionally through the text, the problem the kids are solving has nothing to do with science, geology, ecology, or anything. It’s just a shallow action movie rescue, sweeping a civilian away from danger. It’s all equipment and luck, with no connection to science, knowledge, or discovery.The kids don’t use their knowledge and skills for anything. Cheng tells us a bit about volcanos, but USES that knowledge zero times. It isn’t relevant to the problem, and it isn’t relevant to the solution. Anyone with a helicopter and an inordinate amount of dumb luck could have saved the helpless girl-and-dog duo.And to make matters worse, the unexpected-topic secret explorer does nothing. Normally there’s an exciting moment when they realize why the second explorer was chosen, and their area of expertise suddenly becomes relevant and they have an equally significant moment of saving the day.In this book, the second explorer is a plant and animal expert. She surely could have done something cool, in a better book. But this writer decided, for the first time in this otherwise great series, to skip all that. She befriends an already friendly pet dog, and is given a one-person standing ovation for it. Seriously. Then when things get volcanic, she thinks it’s too dangerous to lift out the stranded injured person with the rescue helicopter that’s already in place, and flys away alone.Which is just fine by the geology expert because he had a hankering to sled all the way down the mountain during an active eruption at top speeds and with no visibility because of the clouds of ash. Sure, great. Whatever. I guess he’s too distracted by playing a cardboard action hero to remember anything about what volcano ash is composed of, and its respiratory impact. Some geologist.I sincerely hope this was the last one written by this writer, and that the series returns to being awesome, sciencey, and knowledge-centering instead of another sloppy two-dimensional action story. But now I’m dreading trying the next one and will definitely pre-read at the library.

Great story and some incidental learning as well!