The Adventure in the Amazon: Brazil

Secret Agents Jack and Max Stalwart #2

by Elizabeth Singer Hunt

For fans of the award-winning SECRET AGENT JACK STALWART series comes a must-read new chapter book series! Now Jack teams up with his older brother, Max, to solve new international mysteries, using their special training as secret agents.

Secret agents Jack and Max Stalwart are sent to the Amazon jungle to investigate the disappearance of an important Global Protection Force scientist. Soon, they discover that the scientist's disappearance is no accident. A greedy outlaw is illegally mining for gold and he'll stop and nothing to keep his secret safe. Can Jack and Max save themselves and the scientist from almost certain death?

Genres: Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

Published July 25, 2017

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a solid “meh” for me. I imagine the series follows the same pattern, just different settings, bad guys, and objects. I was intrigued by the pages in the front with the info about the family and their gadgets and the country they’ll be visiting. It set the expectation for the formula, but also provided some interesting factoids about where the adventure was to occur; Brazil, in this case. My delight in finding interesting info about Brazil and the Amazon was immediately spoiled by finding not one, but two incorrectly translated words in the Secret Agent Phrasebook (tchau = goodbye, not yes; sim = yes, not no) as well as incorrect pronunciation (Rs at the beginnings of words in Portuguese sound like Hs, thus rio would be pronounced closer to hee-oo). Unfortunately, outside of Spanish and the most basic Portuguese, I can’t confirm the veracity of other phrasebooks in the series, and will likely be suspicious of them from here on out. Errors notwithstanding, it was kind of a bummer that the author didn’t try to use those basic words in the context of the book itself, why else would they be added to the pages of useful information in the front?

The story itself was fine, the characters are stereotypical and vanilla, the drawing of the men described as Brazilians looked surprisingly Anglo, and there was more reliance on the boys’ tech than their own skills and abilities, but other than that it’s pretty unobjectionable (you can decide for yourselves if I have high standards for my kids’ books or I’m just being overly picky). There are definitely better adventure series out there for kids.