Jungle escape by Nathan Luff

Branson Hawthorne Esquire is your typical city child on his way to summer camp after his parents flew off to a ski trip in Aspen without him.  Branson likes the normal comforts of life, access to a phone, fresh clean sheets, and writing letters of protest that he never mails – okay not so normal! 

But what happens to him and the three other camp attendees is as far from comfortable and normal as you can imagine.  Promised poolside luxury, cuisine classes, lessons in interior decorating and an exclusive resort what they discover is anything but with slime encrusted bathrooms an empty pool and accommodation that isn’t fit for the creatures that have already claimed it!

The friends find themselves without phones, access to outside communication is cut off and constantly having their life endangered by the creatures that live in the Daintree Forest as they try to escape from the camp, or at least survive the week!   

This book is exciting and packed with action and humour that will keep the reader engaged and turning the page, as Branson and his friends try to work out how to escape the camp owner, Sal without coming into close contact with the cassowary and crocodiles that surround the camp.  While Sal and her son constantly block them and make them clean up the camp, fix the pool and remove slime from the bathrooms it will take all of Branson’s negotiating power to bring this to a happy conclusion for all. 

This is a brilliantly funny book that really shows the nature of the Australian bush and how by banding together against a common enemy fun and friendships can develop.  This book would be a fabulous read aloud as students will want to know what happens next and if Branson and his friends make it out alive! 

Themes: Action, Adventure, Friendship, Australian Bush, Survival, Camps.

Mhairi Alcorn