Journey to the Pole

Antarctica #1

by Peter Lerangis

Set in 1911, a group of explorers must concede defeat and give up on their dreams of reaching the South Pole, yet getting back to civilization isn't nearly as easy as they thought it would be and so each passing day becomes a battle for survival against the elements. Original.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Adventure, Childrens, Juvenile

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2000

About the author

Lerangis's work includes The Viper's Nest and The Sword Thief, two titles in the children's-book series The 39 Clues, the historical novel Smiler's Bones, the YA dark comedy-adventure novel wtf, the Drama Club series, the Spy X series, the Watchers series, the Abracadabra series, and the Antarctica two-book adventure, as well ghostwriting for series such as the Three Investigators, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, Sweet Valley Twins, and more than forty books in the series The Baby-sitters Club and its various spin-offs.[1] He has also written novels based on film screenplays, including The Sixth Sense, Sleepy Hollow, and Beauty and the Beast, and five video game novelizations in the Worlds of Power series created by Seth Godin.[2] As a ghostwriter he has been published under the name A. L. Singer.[3]
Lerangis is the son of a retired New York Telephone Company employee and a retired public-elementary-school secretary, who raised him in Freeport, New York on Long Island. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biochemistry, while acting in musicals[4] and singing with and musically directing the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes,[5][6] before moving to New York. He worked there as an actor[7] and freelance copy editor for eight years before becoming an author.[8]
In 2003, Lerangis was chosen by First Lady Laura Bush to accompany her to the first Russian Book Festival, hosted by Russian First Lady Lyudmila Putina in Moscow.[9][10]Authors R. L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Marc Brown (the Arthur the Aardvark series) also made the trip with Bush.[9]
Also in 2003, Lerangis was commissioned by the United Kingdom branch of Scholastic to write X-Isle, one of four books that would relaunch the Point Horror series there.[11] A sequel, Return to X-Isle, was published in 2004.
In 2007, Scholastic announced the launch of a new historical mystery series called The 39 Clues, intended to become a franchise.[12] Lerangis wrote the third book in the series, The Sword Thief, published in March 2009.[13][14][15] On March 3, 2009, Scholastic announced that Lerangis would write the seventh book in the series, The Viper's Nest.[14][16]
Lerangis lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their sons Nick and Joe.[17]

Reviews

[Mrs. Bolduc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this books with my 8th Grade Class as a read-aloud. For my students, I think the setting change and the different characters often confused them, and I believe they would have enjoyed it more if they were reading it themselves. I picked this books up not realizing it was part of a series. While I enjoyed the story, I'm okay with not picking up the 2nd book (which my students adamantly told me they did not want to read either) right away. Had I know it as a 2 -part book, I would not have chosen it as a read-aloud option for my students.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the audience the book is intended for, mid-grade age, I rated it 4 stars. Kids who are interested in exploration and adventure would likely enjoy the book. I read 80% of it in one sitting. It’s an easy read and fast-paced. It’s the kind of book that might spark an interest and lead you to reading more on the subject of Antarctica exploration.

[Muhab · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was good

[Jenny Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very adventure filled book, however it can be a bit disjointed, and the fact that weeks are passed over in very few sentences adds to that. Overall, for a younger audience I would recomend it as an introduction to Antartica exploration in the 1900's. There is a good bibliography at the end with a short description of each book listed, which is a great jumping off point.

[earthshattering · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure where this book came from, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. It is a quick read since it is a YA book. The descriptions of Antarctica are pretty good, and the character development is also entertaining. There was clearly some work put into expedition research. The story was interesting.

[Cindy Moyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book until I got to the end, and then there were a couple lines that ruined the whole story for me. If you don't have the whole set, it kind of leaves you hanging at the end.

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 2 out of 5]

C-. fiction, adventure, YA, series, (Antarctica, #1)

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an undertaking to try something noone has done. Some swearing.

[Stephen]

i loved it the south pole sounds cool.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got for $1 at a used bookstore and was disappointed. It wasn’t awful, just not super engaging and not great writing.

[Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are three main characters in this book and their names are Jack, Colin, and Andrew. Jack Winslow is Colin’s father and Andrew’s stepfather. The year is 1909 and the three of them live in New York City. They are going to go on a expedition to the South Pole, along with other sailors and officers. The ship that they are traveling on is called the Mystery. The crew went to Buenos Aires, Argentina to pick up the dogs that would go on the expedition. When they get to Antarctica they split up into groups. One group went on the exploration, and the other stayed at the ship. Jack is the leader of the expedition and Andrew went along too. Colin stayed at the ship with the others that didn’t go. The explorers’ goal was to discover the South Pole. The men travel through harsh conditions with sledges packed with gear, food, and supplies. They went on for a month, but they couldn’t make it. The expeditioners had lost some of the supplies and half of their food, yet the dogs were getting sick and weak. They had to turn around and go back, otherwise they wouldn’t survive. In the end, they were very lucky to just be able to get back to the ship.
I thought this book was pretty good. It was interesting and made me want to read more. I liked how the explorers worked together as a team to stay alive and travel through the extreme conditions. Another thing that I enjoyed was that Andrew really benefited in the expedition, he had made an effort to help and be part of the team. One thing that I didn’t like as much was the men taking the risk of losing their supplies and food by pushing the sledges down a steep slope/cliff. I would suggest this book to people who like to read action and adventure books, or survival type of books also.

[CC. Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really love Peter Leranigs, but this was not my favorite book of his. However, I did like the book. It was good, just not great and that might have been because I had just finished reading an amazing book, so my expectations were high.

It is a story of the race to the pole in the early 1900's. The main character, Cole, is a young boy whose father is obsessed with finding the pole. Cole's mother has died and his stepbrother Andrew is competition for the father's affection. Cole thinks he can reconnect with his father on the voyage to the pole, until he finds out that Andrew is going as well. The voyage is filled with disaster and misadventure, both natural and man-made. And, yet, it wasn't a knuckle-biter. Perhaps I've read too many of these types of stories. The descriptions of the adventure were really fascinating--to think what men endured, what they willingly volunteered for in order to conquer unknown lands. It's very clearly a clean adventure story with nothing in it remotely inappropriate. Just good, clean fun that has a touch more family drama than hair-raising adventure for this thrill seeker.

The book did have great information on that period in history and really shows what it might have been like to travel to Antarctica back then. It's definitely a book for adolescents and has nothing in it to really interest adults.

It's part of a series, but not one I will keep reading. It just didn't hold my attention enough to search out the others.

[B.Lishing]

Journey to the Pole
Journey to the pole is a very intense book. It is about three men who were supposed to go to find the south pole but had to retreat for the sake of their own lives. The journey was very intense and they battled against mother nature. The book started off with Jack the expedition leaders wife dying. Andrew Jack's stepson sat in an office all day interviewing for the trip. Jack, Andrew, and Phillip were left by themselves when other crew members bailed. They began their journey through very cold weather and battled intensely. They were forced to turn back for the sake of their own lives before reaching Antartica.
My favourite part of the book was when Phillip had to get his leg amputated because of extreme frostbite. This was my favourite part because it shows how hard their journey was and how intense it was. It shows how unprepared they were. They had to amputate with no medicine and a saw because they did not have proper tools.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes adventures. This book was very exciting and interesting and the story was really good. I liked the book because I like adventure. I also liked it because I was pretty amazed by their story and how they got their and back. You will like this book if you are into adventure and journey's. I did not like the fact that the book briefly went over some days that could have been very interesting, but other than that the book was very good and interesting.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a big hit with the 9 to 12 year-olds I read it with, especially the boys. Short chapters from different characters' points of view, lots of dialogue, and lot of action point to the fact that this was written by the same man who wrote the screenplay for "Jaws".

The story is about an American crew exploring Antarctica around the same time as Shackleton did. It takes them from New York, where there ship is based, to Argentina, and finally to the Weddell Sea where the ship gets caught in ice and the crew splits up, one group to stay with the ship and the other to explore the continent. There is one death (a crevasse), one amputation, many blizzards, and a failed mutiny before the book ends with the ice around the ship starting to expand and crush it. There is a sequel, which the ending of this book leads neatly to.

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

You guys know how much I love books about Antarctica, right? Well...not so much this one. While there were some ideas here that I really liked, I didn't feel like any of them were executed well enough to actually work well. There are some interesting hints that Colin's relationships with his half-brother Andrew and their father Jack are somewhat rocky, but it's not well-explained. And I feel like Lerangis tried to tell this story using too many different points of view, and it ended up feeling really unfocused. He should have just stuck to switching back and forth between Andrew and Colin instead of also throwing Jack and Phillip and Kosta into the mix. And then Andrew and Jack's team are in a desperate fight for survival, but somehow...none of it really comes across as particularly urgent. The whole story just felt flat to me. I'm skipping part two.

[Saige Holcomb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think “Antarctica Journey to the Pole” is a really adventurist book. My favorite part was when Colin and Andrews’s mother died because I like emotional parts. I think the biggest thing that impressed me was the way that the men survived in the cold. I would be so miserable if I was camping in the cold like that for a few months.

“Antarctica Journey to the Pole” is about two brothers that lost their mother. Now their step father wants to take them and his men on a journey to Antarctica to forget the pain that they have been going through. This journey can took a lot of hard work to survive.

I recommend “Antarctica Journey to the Pole” to either men or Christians. I would recommend it for men because it has mostly men in it and they are doing things that men usually do. I recommend it to Christians because there were some parts that happened that convinced them to pray.

[C.B. Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was shocked at how many people rated this book with two to three stars! I immensely enjoyed this book when I read it a year or two ago, and I've been planning to reread it ever since. After I finished it, I begged my mom for the second book. ;) I really liked the layers these characters had. Colin was my favorite, but I have to admit Andrew was pretty cool, too. And Nigel was hilarious. :P The adventure was great, too. I especially liked all the tension, and that the story stayed true to history [spoiler]by not having them actually reach the pole[/spoiler]. Lerangis did a great job, and... such a horrible cliffhanger. He definitely could have made the two books just one, but I'm not really complaining...

[Nial.m · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was interesting. there was somehard words in it. it was all over the place for moving.

The main charaters are Colin Andrew and winslow. They go place to place looking for sailors, they have troubles finding the right sailors to do the right people. I think this book is a good book if you like reading and adevture. if t you like cold weather and imagination you will love this book.

[Theda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm an adult reader and this is a tween/teen book, but I very much enjoyed both the story and the information on the ship and Antarctica. I liked the technique of having each chapter told from the point of view of a different character. It effectively showed the separate development and changes in each of the brothers as the trip progressed. Highly recommend for younger readers, and for adults as well.

[Dan Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and enjoyable story about one man's obsessive endeavor to be the first to reach the South Pole. Definitely one I'll recommend to my students who want an engaging historical fiction selection.

[Andrew Kiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a good book because it had some great detail and the books flow was nice and it went in order with good organization. It was also interesting because this took place in the early 1900's. This was a good book and you should read it.

[Mallory Pinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Booriiinnngggg

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. It was a good read and based on a true story of Antarctic Exploration in 1909. Easy and quick read.

[Alex]

it is a great book and it has some andventure

[Sharla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reviewed for Heartland School.

[Mellanie C]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12883835