Search for Senna

With a seemingly boundless capacity for imagination and humor, the author of the Animorphs series takes older readers on a journey to a bizarre world, where elements of the past coexist with the fantastical, in this first volume of the Everworld series. After his mysterious girlfriend, Senna, is dragged underwater by a gigantic wolflike creature that rises from a lake, David and three other high school students are swept into the peculiar and frightening universe of Everworld. Applegate conjures a thrilling land inhabited by trolls, a gigantic snake ""the size of a derailed Amtrak,"" evil winged creatures called Hetwan, unicorns and a colony of crude Vikings. Taken as prisoners to the court of Loki, the Norse god of destruction, the quartet again encounters the supernatural wolf--but it seems that Senna has disappeared. When they fall asleep and find themselves back in the ""real world,"" the four realize that Everworld is a parallel universe, and they are existing simultaneously in both places. As the book closes, narrator David and his friends have joined the ranks of the Vikings in battle against the army of the Aztec god Huitzilopoctli. Loki's treacherous castle is as gruesome as Huitzilopoctli's island is dazzling. With her blend of accessible story and mythological cast of characters, Applegate is sure to attract a host of new fans. Due out the same month is the series' second installment, Land of Loss (-87751-8). Ages 12-up. (July)