The Dreaded Cliff

by Terry Nichols, Odessa Sawyer (Illustrations)

Flora the packrat avoids strangers, especially opera-singing porcupines and rabbits that make prickly pear cactus pads talk. She’s never flown through the air, nor drooped herself before a kangaroo rat king. And she would never talk with a blood-thirsty owl, because everyone knows owls can’t talk. Besides, they eat packrats. Flora’s life is all about snuggling in her treasure-packed nest and ‘snibbling’ snacks with her packrat pal.

All this is about to change when Flora learns about the ancestral packrat home stuffed in a dark crack in the looming dreaded cliff. Ever since a killer took it over, packrats have stayed away. Flora tucks the story of the home deep in her heart...then tumbles into a faraway canyon. Can she survive dangers that seem to lurk around every tree stump? And will she ever get home and confront the invader of the ancestral packrat home?

260 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2021

About the author

Terry Nichols is a retired National Park Service ranger who left her childhood home in Cincinnati to work in parks in the high desert and canyon country of the Southwest. After thirty years, she traded her ranger life of caring for ancestral sites for a journey of writing for children. Her middle grade books, The Dreaded Cliff and The Turquoise Bead, reflect the Southwest creatures and landscapes she's grown to love. Terry is fond of wandering the world and has published over 100 blogs about her travel experiences. Her essays have appeared in regional anthologies. She lives in northwest New Mexico, where she continues her love affair with packrats and endless skies. Visit her at her website at terryfnichols.com.

Reviews

[Brenda]

Flora is a packrat who enjoys venturing out each day for a quick sampling of her favorite prickly pear cactus pads. Like most packrats, Flora mostly keeps to herself, only stopping when she receives "the warning" from her cousin Gertrude. Every packrat receives the warning to "remember and beware of the dreaded cliff." Yet, no one can recall what exactly they're to be careful of. Just thinking about the dreaded cliff causes Flora's stomach to do backflips. All that changes following a chance encounter with Grandma Mimi, who imparts that the dreaded cliff was once the packrats ancestral home, a special place, until an invader took it over. Confused by this new information, Flora returns to her home, tucked below the jangly crate and proceeds to fall asleep. Shortly thereafter, she awakens to find that she is in a new place, separated from the rest of the packrats.

Timid and slightly afraid of her new surroundings, she is encouraged when she meets Cyrus the kangaroo rat king, a stuttering porcupine named Paco and Dayana the ventriloquist rabbit. Each of the animals changes Flora's outlook on her previous life near the cliffs and instills her with hope that she can brave it out in her new surroundings. Flora also develops the confidence to deal with the harsh realities and dangers of living in the wild, even outsmarting a badger and owl. The Dreaded Cliff exposes children to the wildlife of the southwest, including pinon pines, prickly pear cactuses and even the harsher elements, for example when Flora witnesses the death of a dear friend following a predator attack on their small community. Flora however is not easily dissuaded and is instead even more resolved to follow her destiny to return to her ancestral home and rid it of the dangers lurking inside.

Terry Nichols is a retired National Park Service ranger with thirty years of experience writing trail guides, brochures and articles about wildlife. Currently she lives in Aztec, New Mexico and The Dreaded Cliff is her debut novel, inspired by her own experiences with a packrat who stowed away in her 1979 Volkswagen as she was travelling across country on a camping trip. Her knowledge of the southwest is evident in her writing, making it easy to visualize the setting. I quite enjoyed reading The Dreaded Cliff and was reminded of Colorado and the time that rats built their nest in the electronics of my parents hot tub. Not only did they pose a problem to the electronics but you had to be really careful in protecting yourself when getting rid of their nests to avoid possible exposure to Hantavirus. Despite the real life hassles with these rodents, Flora is certainly an endearing character and the reader is sympathetic with her yearning to return to her home. I enjoyed how she changed throughout the story, overcoming ever obstacle and danger that came her way. Given Flora's propensity for using a large vocabulary of words, like "lavish and sublime," the story would be best for a more advanced reader and one that can understand the connection between the death of an animal and its relationship to the food chain of nature.

**A special thank you to Terry Nichols and Kinkajou Press for the review copy.**

[Terry Nichols]

When a packrat hitches a ride in a Volkswagen van, she's gonna end up on an adventure. That's when I knew I needed to write the story of Flora, inspired by that brave packrat who went on a camping trip with me. Hope everyone enjoys!--from author Terry Nichols

[Jennifer Bohnhoff]

Flora is a plump little packrat who thinks, in her own little packratty way, that she is a goddess. Like all of her species, she collects treasures: shiny things and prickly things and soft things to decorate her nest, which is under the floorboards of what we could call a Volkswagen van, but she calls a jangly-crate. That's one of the joys of this book: the reader sees the story through the eyes of a rodent who does not always know the human words for the things around her.

Another joy is that Flora loves words, but also mangles them. This teeny Mrs. Malaprop is at her finest when she is addressing his muskiness, errr, manliness, errr mushiness, King Cyrus, a kangaroo rat with an outsized sense of self worth.

Flora lives a perfect packrat life. She snuggles in her treasure-packed nest and 'snibbes' snacks from the munch mound with her packrat pal, Gertrude. The only thing that threatens her serenity is the dreaded cliff, a frightening and fabled place that she has been warned to stay away from since she was a wee pup. When old Grandma Mimi tells Flora about that it was their ancestral home until a mysterious killer wiped out a litter of pups and took over, Flora feels called to reclaim the cliff. However, her plans are thwarted by an inadvertent trip in which she loses her home in the jangly-crate but finds some allies and discovers her own pluck. In the end, Flora must find her way home, and find the courage to face her own fears.

Each chapter in this book begins with a charming black and white illustration by Odessa Sawyer. At the back of the book is a short but informative section on the real animals behind the characters in this book. It is a fine and entertaining book for young readers who are interested in the flora and fauna of the American southwest.

[Vicki Holmsten]

Flora, the chubby packrat goddess of the desert southwest, is charming as she accidentally gets lost, makes new friends, and finds her way home. In her adventures, she discovers the importance of family and heritage. Her adventures with big words are fun, too, as she interacts with her friends from a variety of species. I was entertained, and I learned about these desert animals. A book fit for ten year olds--of any age. Highly recommended.

[Nannette Demmler]

ARC provided by the author for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this sweet little novel about a pack rat that goes on a dangerous journey and quest to save the pack rat’s home. Along the way she makes new friends and unexpected allies, and you learn a lot about pack rats and other desert animals too.

Pack rats are very interesting animals and are cute (unlike their European relatives). They live in nests that they like to keep found objects in. Flora, the narrator of this story, enjoys the simple things in her life, a good meal, her home and the few other pack rats she hangs with. She is also quite smart and resilient even when faced with her nest moving, (it is inside a camper) and her finding herself far from home. She then meets an assortment of other animals including a porcupine, a kangaroo rat and a rabbit who help her when she needs it most.

But she has another quest that she must complete alone. Getting to the Dreaded Cliff and saving the ancestral home of the pack rats. But something evil is living there now and it takes everything that Flora can to complete that task.

If you like learning about the desert and the animals that live there, this will be an entertaining story with an endearing narrator that you will just love.
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[Vicky Ramakka]

Clever writing that will make young readers giggle, become caught up in the “heroine’s journey,” and enjoy a satisfying ending. The section on Animals of the Dreaded Cliff is a beneficial addition to the book.