Operation Redwood, S. Terrell French

Julian Carter-Li opened his eyes and immediately knew he was somewhere he’d never woken up before. But his dream wouldn’t let him go. His eyes closed and he was running again, along an abandoned beach, beside a black ocean, searching for someone he couldn’t name. He stumbled, and as he fell, a voice inside his head reminded Julian that he was dreaming, and he wrenched himself free from his dark dream world, sat up, and looked around.

Julian Carter-Li’s uncle Sibley is a high-powered executive at a company. When Julian accidently reads an email sent to his uncle by a girl named Robin, he discovers Sibley’s plan to cut down a grove of old-growth redwoods to make millions of dollars. He gets caught up, along with his friend Danny, in helping Robin to save the trees.

I really enjoyed this story. Julian’s dad died five years ago, and his mom is in China for 5 months, so he’s stuck living with his horrible Uncle Sibley and Aunt Daphne. Kind of ironic that his aunt’s name is Daphne (Daphne was a character in Greek myth who wanted to be a tree and eventually got turned into one.) Julian manages to sneak off to Robin’s farm in the forest. He learns a lot of new things in the countryside, such as how to milk a goat; he’d never been out of San Francisco before. I thought that was kind of unrealistic, especially since his mom travels so much.

Operation Redwood was definitely a good book, and it tells kids about the very real issue of logging of rare trees. It’s also one of those books about how kids can make a difference in a world of adults. And the way that the book ended was surprising too. (This is another book by Abram’s.)

Read Operation Redwood:

• if you are interested in redwoods
• if you like books set in California
• if you like books about kids making a difference

346 pages.

Very Good! I would recommend this book!