Penny Estelle

HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN (Review)

By Penny Estelle

When you were a child did you ever disobey your parents? If so, what were the results? Did they punish you? Or did something happen because of your disobedience that made you wish you’d listened to you folks? Maybe they were right. Yeah, as we grow older, we discover mothers and fathers are amazingly smart.

Author Penny Estelle’s MG/Tween novel, HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN, is an entertaining adventure about boys, bullies, and surprises, with a touch of fantasy added for good measure. Ten-year-old Andy Thompson explores an abandoned house, where he finds a box with a stick inside it that glows. Being curious, as most kids are, he has to find out more about this amazing stick. Enter the bully, Jason Crew, and his brother, Danny, new kids in school, and there’s never a dull moment. Without giving away the plot, I’ll just mention a talking toad, a witch that lives on Devil’s Mountain, and a blue dragon provide a hefty dose of humor, fear, and discovery for Andy and friends.

Penny Estelle has created characters that have the faults of real children and also their good points. The reader follows along, wondering what will happen next. At least this reader did. The author throws in a surprise or two along the way. Do the boys learn anything from their adventures? Well, pick up a copy of the book and see. HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN would make a great addition to school libraries and classrooms, as well as your own library.

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Elizabeth has just won a high profile case in court and has left town to spend the holidays at her country home. On the way there she encounters a wrecked vehicle, plays good Samaritan and when she gets the wounded man to her home realizes that this is the same reporter that has caused her trouble in the past. With a big blizzard blowing in their forced time together in a small cabin with Elizabeth’s two year old charmer of a daughter Steve and Elizabeth, attracted to one another from the beginning, spend quality time together only to part and then come together again. This is a typical romantic story with snowbound characters with a happy ending.… (more)