The Lightning Catcher
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The first book of a funny fantasy and adventure series about three friends who discover they have the ability to control the weather. It's Storm Chasers meets The 39 Clues, in a story that Booklist called "fascinating . . . mixing serious science with full-on fantasy."
Eleven-year-old Angus's world is turned upside down when he is mysteriously whisked away to become an apprentice at the Perilous Exploratorium for Weather and Vicious Storms. At Perilous, the world's most dangerous weather is studied to protect mankind from its ravages. There, Angus discovers that his parents aren't boring government workers after all—they are actually famous Lightning Catchers, and they've been kidnapped. With the help of two loyal new friends, Angus intends to find them. This fast-paced, action-packed, funny story of friendship, adventure, science, and mayhem begins a high-octane four-book series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While a certain spunkiness pervades British author Cameron's debut novel (first in a planned four-book series), it's let down by an over-reliance on familiar middle-grade fantasy conventions. Eleven-year-old Angus lives with his eccentric inventor uncle (his parents are conspicuously away on covert assignment). In the middle of the night, a peculiar stranger arrives and insists that Angus must accompany him to the previously unknown Isle of Imbur. There, Angus begins his apprenticeship as a "lightning cub" at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms, where he learns the secrets of his lightning-catching powers and the threats that he and his fellow apprentices are there to stop. Readers may embrace the novel's genial goofiness Cameron casts a ragtag team of characters with such monikers as Delphinia Dark-Angel, Scabious Dankhart, and Catcher Sparks. But while the author writes evocatively of unusual weather patterns, the story never veers off its predictable path, and the humor doesn't go far enough in punching holes in the source material it draws from. Ages 8 12.
