cover image The Place of Lions

The Place of Lions

Eric Campbell. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P, $17 (185pp) ISBN 978-0-15-262408-8

When his father lands a job in Tanzania, 14-year-old Chris travels with him. But before they even arrive in their new home, the small plane they are riding is involved in a freak accident with a swarm of vultures, leaving Chris, his father and the pilot stranded on the Serengeti Plain. Relatively uninjured, Chris decides to walk 30 miles to a site where he believes he can find help. On his way, he dodges poachers and becomes involved in a mystic symbiotic relationship with an aging lion. In its essentials, this tale recalls Jean George's Julie of the Wolves and Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. The book's anti-poaching message is laudable, and the author's intense affection for Africa and its animals (if not its people) is very much in evidence. Unfortunately, these good intentions are not remedy enough for the deadly combination of adjective-laden sentences and cartoon-like characters. Ages 8-up. (Sept.)