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.
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Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.K. Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths.
This complete collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories, showing a quiet wit and compassion that has endeared him to many, whilst solving his mysteries by a mixture of imagination and a sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner.In the Gloucestershire village of Honeycote, country life is anything but quiet. Maybe it's something to do with all that fresh air, but it's the kind of place where passions run high...The Liddiard family are well known in Honeycote - and now there is to be a big wedding. But will everything go according to plan? Lucy Liddiard knows her husband is no saint, but isn't prepared for his latest confession. Bride-to-be Mandy has no idea what joining the Liddiards really means. And local girl Mayday, wild child, rebel and free spirit, is thinking the unthinkable - with unimaginable consequences ...JUST A FAMILY AFFAIR is a glorious, all-consuming story about finding out the truth, finding a husband, or perhaps just finding yourself.
Sally Jupp seemed the ideal girl to help Mrs Maxie run a large house and look after her invalid husband. She was pretty, docile and grateful; or so it seemed, until murder shattered the tranquility of her new home. A puzzling, disturbing killing that brought Detective-Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to the quiet village in search of the murderer.
"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting cliches about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty and frequent death and illness and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings for a compelling memoir.
