Hide & Seek

Author: Katy Grant
Ages: 10+
Rating: 2/5

About:  Chase has started a new hobby: Geocaching. This will be his first geocache search on his own and he's excited, but when he finds the cache it has been tampered with by somebody who appears to need help. With a little patience and some clever thinking Chase discovers two boys who seem to be perpetually camping with their dad. Chase is suspicious and determined to find out what these boys are hiding or what they are hiding from.

Thoughts: This story definitely had some suspense, but so much of the story was drawn out and slow going that it often took away from the main interest of the plot. I liked the descriptions of the wilderness and Chase's appreciation of it all but I found that often these parts were inserted into the story when I was getting anxious about what would happen next. And what would happen next was just more of Chase daydreaming about elk or how his parents might move the family to the city.
 
*Spoiler* It turns out the two boys Chase befriends have been kidnapped by their father, and have been missing for almost two years. Obviously he is stunned and doesn't know what to do. Leading up to this point he's repeatedly thought about how great it would be to be a hero. He want's to save the day and prove he's not a kid anymore. So here is his chance to save these boys and reunite them with their mother. So does he call the police? No. Does he call his parents? No. He does call the missing boys' mother and tells her he has seen them. But then hangs up without giving her any details about where they might be going. And he does have ideas, and he gave the boys a way to signal him. He decides it would be useful to find out for sure where they went before telling anybody else about it. He should have told his parents and or the police as soon as he realized the boys were kidnapped. Then if he didn't want to wait around, I could buy that he went out looking for them and all the same action could have happened.

And I can't believe it. But for the sake of a coming of age story, I'm willing to see past this major oversight. What turned me off the most was at the end.

Chase's parents are all telling him how proud they are of him and how he did the "right thing" and used his common sense, and how he's a hero because he saved a boy's life. ... Wait what? Even after he's found at the gas station after being missing all night, he doesn't reveal what happened. He waited for his dad to pick him up, topped up on breakfast, and had a heart to heart with his dad before he spilled about the boys -meanwhile the littlest one was getting so sick he almost died. 

To glaze over the fact that he should have trusted his parents (at least) who clearly love him, made me crazy. Yes, I can see praising Chase for his kindness to the boys, and for his cleverness in uncovering the mystery around who they were. But he put the boys and himself in danger by not confiding in anybody. In a book for young people, to not emphasize that he should have told somebody/anybody at least before he took off that last time, is irresponsible. Keeping secrets can be dangerous. That is the point I would have liked to see reinforced.