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Book Review: The Rock Jockeys by Gary Paulsen

Title, Author & Publisher:The Rock Jockeys by Gary Paulsen (A Yearling Book)

Length: 56 pages (but they aren't numbered).

Print size: slightly bigger than standard 'novels' - like Stone Fox, not childish-looking.

Plot summary/ other readability issues: Rock Jockeys is one of the "World of Adventure" series. Paulsen's Hatchet is a popular survival story, but is harder to read than it looks and it takes a while for the 'survival' theme to develop, and reluctant and struggling readers lose interest. The World of Adventure books are written for the reader who wants action and risk at a fast pace and may not yet have the skills for a story like Hatchet.

The plot is straightforward and linear and we have three characters to deal with throughout the story. It's three teenage boys against a sheer climb which has never been conquered, with a mystery at the top. This would be a good book for guided independent reading where the student would summarize each chapter as s/he reads. The chapters are short enough so that progress will be fast and a one-sentence summary can do justice to the events of a paragraph.

Climbing terms and information are included at the end of the story -- it might be a good idea to go over them first, or have the students find them as they read.

Typical words: Typical multisyllable/irregular words - you may want to see how many of these words your students can identify before expecting them to read independently.