Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival is a sharp, fun, and quick read. Newton Starker always knew he would most likely die from a lightning strike. It would all happen in the blink of an eye – Zap! One fried 14-year old Newton, the last heir of the Starker line.
Two years after his mother was killed by a lightning strike (as has every other member of the Starker family for generations), Newton is starting a new life at a survival school in the Canadian prairie. He’s got challenges ahead – having lived most of his life indoors, sheltered from the menace of the weather, he needs to learn to make friends, deal with enemies, teachers, homework, and the whole “survival by any means necessary” thing.
Snappy writing, brisk, episodic chapters and an effective sweep of emotions make Jolted a book that’s hard to put down. For a kid whose whole life has been about fear and avoidance, Newton learns that friendship, trust and “accepting [his] nature and Nature herself” are the real rules of survival. Plus, there’s a super cute pig named Josephine who will your heart with her first “oink.”
- Posted by Cori