“‘I don’t know where to start,’ Tom said.

‘According to some people, the beginning is a good place.’

Tom puffed his cheeks. The beginning? His day dying. Jeffrey Veatch chasing his mom. Refrigerator deliverymen. Packing foam.”

At eleven years old, Tom already has quite a few stories to tell. Leepike Ridge is just a piece of Tom’s story–Tom’s life after his father’s death. It’s his life with his mother in their home on top of a rock in which he misses his father terribly and loathes his mother’s new boyfriend Jeffrey Veatch. And it’s his struggle to survive and to find the light again when he is pulled underwater metaphorically by the weight of his burdens and also literally by the current.

This struggle for survival begins in earnest when Tom decides to ride the packing foam down the local stream in the middle of the night (he can’t sleep after being informed that his mother is “considering” Jeffrey’s proposal). Tom awakens to being pulled underwater into a series of underground caverns from which there is seemingly no escape. This fact becomes all the more trenchant when Tom meets Reg, a man who has been stuck underground for three years with little light, with negligible diet variation (crawdads, crawdads, and more crawdads), and with no company save for the occasional visit from a partially lame canine named Argus. Reg tells Tom of his underground lair, “The hard part wasn’t finding this place; that was an accident. The hard part is staying alive, wanting to stay alive when you can’t get back out.”

Yet, together Tom and Reg (and Argus the dog) help each other to hope and to search for a way out. Reg tells Tom, “If you die trying, I’ll die alongside you. It would be a nice change of pace from firelight and pasty-looking crawdads.”

Above ground, Tom’s mother Elizabeth refuses to give up hope that Tom’s still alive. In searching for Tom, she discovers that her husband’s death may not have been accidental. Throw in a villainous group of men who pretend to search for Tom but are actually searching for treasure and who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it and a sinister dimension is added to an already gripping mystery-survival story. N.D. Wilson’s first novel for young children is a riveting adventure that cries out to have its pages turned to the very end in order to find out whether Tom will ever again see the light of day.

Fans of adventure-survival stories like those of Gary Paulsen, Will Hobbs, Harry Mazer, and Jean Craighead George (as well as fans of the more classic adventure authors such as Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard) will likely feel they’ve struck gold in reading Leepike Ridge.

Takeaway quote:

Reg: “After three years down here, I’ve not learned too much. But one thing I do know is that our bellies aren’t big enough for revenge. It turns sour and eats you up. We’ll get out, but we’ll get out for the sun, the moon, and mothers, not for small-souled enemies, though we’ll deal with them when we get there.” ( )

The plot progresses nicely with enough twists and turns to please the 5-8th grade crowd. I wish the characters, especially the adults, were a little more fleshed out. The "bad guys" have the depth of cardboard standees and rely mostly on bad guy stereotypes. Its not enough to throw off the middle school crowd. The ending was satisfying, with enough unsaid to let readers make up their own mind about certain endings. Facinating premise - nice author's note on the topic at the end that could lead to some great curricular tie ins. ( )

A clever book, with depth. I liked the offhand Odyssey references... like Tom's parents' bed. ( )

This is a very different sort of adventure story. A 12-year-old boy named Tom, disgruntled at his mother's relationship with a man he doesn't like, heads downriver on a raft (really the foam packing from a refrigerator box) and ends up under a mountain and utterly trapped, along with a corpse, a dog, and - eventually - a man who had been similiarly trapped for over 3 years. There are gritty details - nefarious "treasure-hunters," a plucky mom, a three-legged dog, and plenty of real danger - but what sets this book apart from other adventure/survival stories are the small details. The dialogue has a slightly different edge to it that snags the attention, the adults are as fully formed and unique as Tom, and ALL the dogs have personalities that are perfectly drawn with just an offhand sentence or two. It isn't perfect - there are odd plot stops and starts and not everything is explained satisfactorily - but it's a damn good story. ( )

A different kind of tale but one that I did enjoy very much. The characters were interesting, some likable and heroic and others not so much. There is plenty with which 11 year old boys can identify. It is a little gross in places (they'll like that) and nerve wracking in others. I liked the relationship it had to an ancient literary tale. I felt like I was along with Tom, Reg and Argus as they sought a way to get back to the sunlight. The ending was bittersweet. I would definitely recommend this book to any youngster who likes their protaganist brave, clever and persistent. ( )