Gorilla Adventure by Willard Price

Synopsis from back cover: When those two famous teenage trappers Hal and Roger Hunt receive a cablegram from their father asking them if they will capture a giant gorilla for him, they say yes immediately, even though it means a dangerous expedition into the Congo jungle. It turns out to be one of their most thrilling and challenging assignments ever.

An erupting volcano, a fifteen-foot mamba, a killer gorilla and a gorilla killer are only a few of the terrors the boys have to face. Roger is nearly blinded by a spitting cobra, Hal has to wrestle with an angry black leopard, and they both find themselves with some very strange bedfellows. But, by the end of the adventure, the boys have collected a fine menagerie of rare and valuable animals, including a white python, a two-inch-long elephant shrew - the smallest of all the mammals - and a two-headed boomslang. As they find out on their journey home, they have landed themselves with a whole cargo of trouble!

With its wealth of fascinating facts about the creatures of Africa, and its exciting story; Gorilla Adventure will be greatly enjoyed both by followers of Hal and Roger’s exploits and by newcomers to this colourful series of adventure books.

My thoughts: I absolutely LOVED this book! I was a bit unsure when I first picked it up, because I didn’t like the idea of ‘animal collectors’, I thought they might be poachers or hunters. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Hal and Roger are the nicest boys. They both really love animals, and don’t believe in killing them, as their job is to catch them alive for zoos and circuses. In fact, they are so fond of animals that they end up sharing their bedroom with a python, an adult gorilla, two baby gorillas, and elephant shrew, a chimp, a colobus monkey and a bush-baby!

The boys are in the Congo jungle, and their mission is to catch a mountain gorilla. Unfortunately, a poaching gang gets to the gorillas first and kills most of them. One large adult male gorilla, Gog, mistakenly thinks that Roger and Hal are responsible for killing his family. So Gog begins to take revenge on the boys.

There are lots of funny moments in the book where I laughed out load. Some of the funniest moments involved Tieg, the Dutch guide, who is really a bit of an idiot. He is horrible to the animals, and they get their own back on him throughout the book.

I also loved that there were lots of animal facts scattered through the story. I learned a lot of new things from reading this book. I will definitely be looking out for more books in this series.