Saving Bigfoot Valley by Spike BrownMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This engaging story is about Arrth, a young Bigfoot, and his adventures trying to put right something he feels he did wrong. This mistake happened when he lost an important cloaking device in a rock. He had flung the rock at someone threatening him. Without this device then Bigfoot Valley will be exposed to humans or skin-faces as they are known to Arrth’s community. The adult Bigfoots there consider this a potentially dangerous situation so Arrth decides it is his task to become the hero who will save them before time runs out.
The author introduces a few other new and amusing terms throughout the story apart from skin-faces, and which reflect Arrth’s innocence and ignorance about modern humanity. Things like clothing and food and transport cause him some confusion and will bring a smile to anyone reading this book, and not just the pre-teens that are the targeted readers.
Arrth’s experiences, when he becomes enrolled in a local secondary school with its strict teachers, truant officer, bullies and flirtatious girls, are hilarious. The story has a fast pace and there is a count-down reminder for each chapter. There were some idiomatic words and phrases in the book, like snarfy, snarfing and snarky for example, that readers outside of the USA would not know the meaning of, and could limit their enjoyment.
The ending is exciting and satisfying because readers cannot help but root for the seventy-seven year old Bigfoot ‘youngster’ from the beginning! This clever tale, I am sure, would also be a delight to read out to your children or grandchildren.
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