November 21st, 2009
Zoobreak by Gordon Korman

After she helped them successfully retrieve a priceless baseball card from the guy who swindled it from them, best friends Griffin Bing and Ben Slovak feel they have to help Savannah Drysdale track down her missing pet capuchin monkey. However a class trip to a floating zoo docked at a nearby nature preserve solves one mystery and poses another. Cleo, the missing monkey, is locked into a cage in the zoo and the zoo’s owner adamantly refuses to admit that the little creature might belong to Savannah, so that problem becomes how Griffith and his friends can rescue her before the floating zoo sails away.
Known as the Man With the Plan for his elaborate schemes, Griffin calls in all of the kids who worked on the baseball card heist, and begins work on operation Zoobreak. Along with Pitch Benson, who can climb any tree or fence, Melissa Dukakis, an electronic genius, and Logan Kellerman, aspiring actor, Griffin, Ben and Savannah reconnoitre the old boat that houses the zoo, check out the walls and fences surrounding the nature preserve, post miniature surveillance cameras, and chat up Klaus, the beefy security guard who lives on board. Armed with a plan that, he is certain, covers every possible contingency, Griffin and his team sneak in the zoo in the middle of the night, and then watch as everything goes hilariously wrong.
Savannah, who is Cedarville’s acknowledged authority on animals, becomes incensed when she realises just how bad the living conditions of the zoo’s exhibits really are, and insists that Griffin and his team remove not only Cleo, her monkey, but all of the other animals on display. The six kids have to find places to stash the forty rescued animals, and keep them safe, and hidden, until Savannah’s friend, Dr. Kathleen Alford, curator of the Long Island Zoo, returns from a trip to equatorial Africa. Unfortunately, their animal liberation project has made the news, and the police open an investigation. But, worse still, Mr. “Nasty” Nastase, the zoo’s owner, seems to be on their tail!
Written by Gordon Korman, Zoobreak is an clever, funny, and action-packed adventure about a group of grade-six misfits who know the importance of friendship. Sequel to Swindle, let’s hope there are more stories about Griffin and Bing, and their friends, ahead!
FernFolio Editor








