Beneath by Roland Smith - OPTIONAL

Smith, Roland Beneath, 272 p. Scholastic Press, FEBRUARY 2015.  $17.  Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG. 

It's been a year since Patrick’s older brother Cooper left home - a year without world of any sort.  That year his astronaut mother and microbiologist father split up.  Out of the blue, Pat receives a digital audio and recorder from Coop and the brothers start an exchange, which becomes weirder and weirder as Coop finds something in New York City that excites him and then he drops off the grid, not returning any of Pat’s audio messages.  Pat decides to follow Coop’s footsteps to New York and the Christmas break is a perfect time, as neither of his parents are really paying attention to him any more anyway.  When he arrives in the city, however, things are decidedly strange, as he finds out that Coop has actually gone underground, first to the Community, which seems to live a few steps above the rats, and then to the POD, which is a super secret group even further underground, where once you go in, you are never allowed out.  But Pat is determined to find Coop whatever it takes and there is a girl in the POD who also has a stake in helping Coop escape.

That’s a lot of explanation for a book that underwhelmed me.  I didn’t hate it, but I was not as engrossed as I have been with past Roland Smith books.  His I.Q. series is so much better than this.  So is Storm Runners and the Cryptic Hunters.  


MS - OPTIONAL. Cindy, Library Teacher, MLS