Undertown
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this fast-paced adventure story, Timothy and Jessamyn are towed through the streets of Manhattan riding in Timothy’s family’s sailboat, on their way to the Long Island shore, when the boat comes unhitched from its truck. The teens “sail” backward down a hill in Upper Manhattan, then fall down a huge construction site hole and into the vast sewer system below.
Thrust into an amazing adventure, the kids navigate waterfalls and rapids as they travel through the rain sewers. They meet a graffiti artist their own age, a homeless person named You, and rats the size of large dogs. They fall into the hands of a gangster who claims the sewers as her kingdom and the homeless as her subjects, and acts as a fence for luxury goods! Will she feed Timothy and Jessamyn to the rats?
Praise for Undertown
"Two suburban teens ride a sailboat into Manhattan’s storm drains and meet quirky residents aplenty."
—Kirkus Reviews
"It’s a coming-of-age escapade with a sense of wonder, and Bukiet pays homage to the history and mysteries of NYC with a writing style that’s part sentimental, part poetic, and part tongue-in-cheek.”
—Publishers Weekly
"This classic hero’s journey is set against the detailed backdrop of New York City, both above ground and below."
—Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Adult author Bukiet (A Faker's Dozen) makes the leap to children's books with this off-kilter tale of two suburban youths who end up in the neverending, occasionally uncharted sewers of New York City. Timothy Murphy and Jessamyn Hazard barely knew each other back home in Montclair, N.J., until their parents started dating, but when a freak accident launches them and Timothy's sailboat, the X-tra Large, into the sewers, they see an opportunity for excitement and adventure. As the two middle-schoolers elude the authorities, they encounter a talented graffiti artist, an identity-challenged homeless man, and a bizarre gang of subterranean thieves. It's a coming-of-age escapade with a sense of wonder, and Bukiet pays homage to the history and mysteries of N.Y.C. with a writing style that's part sentimental, part poetic, and part tongue-in-cheek. Throughout, Bukiet's language and phrasings show a respect for and confidence in his audience, and if some of Timothy and Jessamyn's conversations and observations come across as overly mature, they make for memorably entertaining protagonists, lost in a not-so-impossible world. Ages 10 14.
