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Summary
Summary
Alexander Cold knows all too well his grandmother Kate is never far from an adventure. When International Geographic commissions her to write an article about the first elephant-led safaris in Africa, they head -- with Nadia Santos and the magazine's photography crew -- to the blazing, red plains of Kenya. Days into the tour, a Catholic missionary approaches their camp in search of his companions who have mysteriously disappeared. Kate, Alexander, Nadia, and their team, agreeing to aid the rescue, enlist the help of a local pilot to lead them to the swampy forests of Ngoub . There they discover a clan of Pygmies who unveil a harsh and surprising world of corruption, slavery, and poaching.
Alexander and Nadia, entrusting the magical strengths of Jaguar and Eagle, their totemic animal spirits, launch a spectacular and precarious struggle to restore freedom and return leadership to its rightful hands.
The final installment of Isabel Allende's celebrated trilogy of the journeys of Jaguar and Eagle soars with radiant settings, spirits, beings -- and the transformation of an extraordinary friendship.
Author Notes
Isabel Allende was born in 1942 in Lima, Peru, the daughter of a Chilean diplomat. When her parents separated, young Isabel moved with her mother to Chile, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She married at the age of 19 and had two children, Paula and Nicolas. Her uncle was Salvador Allende, the president of Chile. When he was overthrown in the coup of 1973, she fled Chile, moving to Caracas, Venezuela.
While living in Venezuela, Allende began writing her novels, many of them exploring the close family bonds between women. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits, has been translated into 27 languages, and was later made into a film. She then wrote Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and The Stories of Eva Luna, all set in Latin America. The Infinite Plan was her first novel to take place in the United States. She explores the issues of human rights and the plight of immigrants and refugees in her novel, In The Midst of Winter. In Paula, Allende wrote her memoirs in connection with her daughter's illness and death. She delved into the erotic connections between food and love in Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
In addition to writing books, Allende has worked as a TV interviewer, magazine writer, school administrator, and a secretary at a U.N. office in Chile. She received the 1996 Harold Washington Literacy Award. She lives in California. Her title Maya's Notebook made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2013.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-In the final installment of a trilogy that began with City of the Beasts (2002) and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004, both HarperCollins), 18-year-old Alexander Cold, his globe-trotting journalist grandmother, and their 15-year-old friend, Nadia, travel to Kenya to take an elephant safari. Soon, the party takes a detour to the jungle to find some missing missionaries, and, in the process becomes embroiled in a messy bit of business. It involves a military man who has taken over a village and terrorized and enslaved the local Bantu and Pygmy tribes. Although this adventure can stand alone, the amazing abilities of Alexander and Nadia (which include turning into their "totems" of a jaguar and an eagle, talking with animals, and becoming invisible) may strike newcomers to the series as somewhat jarring, not to mention rather too convenient to the plot. The language can be lyrical and several of the characters (especially Angie, the almost-fearless female African pilot) are charismatic, but too often the emotions and personalities of Alexander and Nadia are narrated in long passages instead of shown through action and dialogue, creating an emotional distance that detracts from an otherwise fine adventure tale. Buy where the first two books are popular.-Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Forest of the Pygmies by Isabel Allende, trans. from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden, wraps up the trilogy begun with City of the Beasts and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, of which PW wrote, "Allende's complex heroes, suspenseful tests of courage and the mystic aura that surrounds the story add depth and excitement to a classic battle of good versus evil." Now Alexander, his grandmother, Kate, and Nadia are bound for Kenya, where Kate is on assignment to write about the first elephant-led safaris. But they also discover a ring of slavery and poaching. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
This third mystical adventure concludes the trilogy begun with City of the Beasts. Alexander and his friend Nadia, deep in Africa, use their transcendent powers to help enslaved pygmies escape a cruel despot. Though the depiction of the jungle and its animals is compelling, the plot is hampered by too much exposition and an overly convenient reliance on magical realism. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Allende takes her readers into the wilds of Africa in the final installment of her fantasy adventure trilogy that follows City of the Beasts (2002) and Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004). This story begins when 18-year-old Alexander Cold and his friend, Brazilian native Nadia Santos, join Alex's salty grandmother Kate, a journalist for International Geographic, and two photographers on a safari in Kenya. When a Catholic missionary persuades them and a local pilot to help find his colleagues who are lost in the remote jungles of NgoubÉ, the heroic group endangers their lives in an attempt to save them. While packed with hair-raising near misses and vivid glimpses of Africa's landscapes, tribal customs and wildlife, this is stiffly written, didactic and relentlessly descriptive. The characters are distinct, but undeveloped, and Allende awkwardly explains rather than reveals their interrelationships. Alexander and Nadia have totemic animal spirits, but since the origin and nature of this phenomenon are never explained, it's all rather baffling even within the context of Allende's magic realism. A rich but ultimately disappointing travelogue. (Fiction. 12-15) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 8-11. In the final installment of the trilogy that began with City of the Beasts (2002), Alexander, now 18, acknowledges that he feels vaguely ridiculous, as if he were in some Tarzan movie. Unfortunately, that sums up what's disappointing in this story. Alex and his friend, Nadia, travel to Africa on a new International Geographic expedition with Alex's tough grandma, Kate. In the jungle, they help to save primitive Pygmies from slavery and annihilation by a savage, ridiculous tyrant, who wears a necklace of human fingers. Eventually, in a David versus Goliath chapter, a Pygmy warrior defeats the powerful ruler. Allende's narrative, translated from the Spanish, does show some diversity in Africa, and she individualizes a few local people, especially the women (including a fiercely independent Kenyan pilot). But the constant use of convenient magical realism removes all tension from the plot. There is never any doubt that the amulets and totems will help the good guys win. What will hold readers are the close encounters with elephants, crocodiles, snakes, and gorillas. Forget the people. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2005 Booklist