Take Me to the River

Will Hobbs
HarperCollins (2011)
ISBN 9780060741440
Reviewed by Evan Weldon (age 9) for Reader Views (5/11)

“Take Me to the River” by Will Hobbs is about fourteen-year-old Dylan who travels hours and hours by plane and by bus from his home in North Carolina to visit his long lost uncle and cousin in west Texas and to go rafting down the Rio Grande with them.  Dylan had been hoping for some exciting stuff.  But will there be more excitement and danger than he bargained for?

After hours of grueling travel, Dylan finally arrived at the hotel where he was supposed to meet his cousin and uncle.  After being there for a little while he got a message saying that he needed to hitchhike 80 miles to meet his cousin at a ghost town restaurant.  That was not really the welcome that Dylan was expecting!  Finally he found his cousin and found out that his uncle had been suddenly called away to Alaska.  His fifteen-year-old cousin Rio still wanted to do the rafting trip, and Dylan agreed.  He agreed even after they were warned about Hurricane Dolly and even after they saw suspicious Black Hawk helicopters flying up and down the river.
 
The first part of their trip was calm, the water was low, but the boys had fun getting to know each other.  One night as they were setting up camp, two figures appeared.  Dylan and Rio cautiously went up to meet them.  The man and seven-year-old boy were in bad shape, especially the boy who had red marks on his hands as if his wrists had been tied.  Dylan and Rio shared some of their supplies, even giving the strangers their tent.  The next day was uneventful except for bad weather.  The next night Dylan and Rio camped in a cave and watched the torrential rain.  They spotted the visitors from a few days ago in a row boat struggling in the river.  Can Dylan and Rio save them?  Why does the man make them feel so uncomfortable?  Let me tell you, the rest of the book is very suspenseful.
 
I would recommend this book to my friends.  This book was full of action.  It wasn’t really a mystery because Dylan and Rio didn’t really try to solve something, but it had a lot of excitement.  “Take Me to the River” was suspenseful but not really scary.

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