City of the Beasts

by Isabel Allende

Overview

A search for the Beast within the heart of the Amazon becomes a quest for self-discovery in this coming-of-age story filled with international adventure, rich mythology, and magical realism from globally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende.

Would you venture into the heart of the Amazon rainforests?

When Alexander Cold has the chance to join his fearless journalist grandmother on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon, he’s not sure it’s the best idea. Especially when their mission from the International Geographic is to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast.

But under the dense canopy of the jungle, Alexander is amazed to discover much more than he ever could have imagined about the hidden worlds of the rainforest. Drawing on the strength of the jaguar, the totemic animal Alexander finds within himself, and the eagle, his new friend Nadia’s spirit guide, both young people are led by the invisible People of the Mist on a thrilling and unforgettable journey. What they discover just might change their world forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798217041220
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/03/2026
Series:	Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar , #1
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Isabel Allende, a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist, is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than 77 million copies of her twenty-six books across forty-two languages. In addition to her work as a writer, Isabel devotes much of her time to human rights causes. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs. You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende, and on X @IsabelAllende.

Hometown:

San Rafael, California

Date of Birth:

August 2, 1942

Place of Birth:

Lima, Peru

Website:

http://www.isabelallende.com

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Alexander Cold awakened at dawn, startled by a nightmare. He had been dreaming that an enormous black bird had crashed against the window with a clatter of shattered glass, flown into the house, and carried off his mother. In the dream, he watched helplessly as the gigantic vulture clasped Lisa Cold's clothing in its yellow claws, flew out the same broken window, and disappeared into a sky heavy with dark clouds. What had awakened him was the noise from the storm: wind lashing the trees, rain on the rooftop, and thunder.

He turned on the light with the sensation of being adrift in a boat, and pushed closer to the bulk of the large dog sleeping beside him. He pictured the roaring Pacific Ocean a few blocks from his house, spilling in furious waves against the cliffs. He lay listening to the storm and thinking about the black bird and about his mother, waiting for the pounding in his chest to die down. He was still tangled in the images of his bad dream.

Alexander looked at the clock: six-thirty, time to get up. Outside, it was beginning to get light. He decided that this was going to be a terrible day, one of those days when it's best to stay in bed because everything is going to turn out bad. There had been a lot of days like that since his mother got sick; sometimes the air in the house felt heavy, like being at the bottom of the sea. On those days, the only relief was to escape, to run along the beach with Poncho until he was out of breath. But it had been raining and raining for more than a week -- a real deluge -- and on top of that, Poncho had been bitten by a deer and didn't want to move. Alex was convinced that he had the dumbestdog in history, the only eighty-pound Labrador ever bitten by a deer. In the four years of his life, Poncho had been attacked by raccoons, the neighbor's cat, and now a deer -- not counting the times he had been sprayed by the skunks and they'd had to bathe him in tomato juice to get rid of the smell. Alex got out of bed without disturbing Poncho and got dressed, shivering; the heat came on at six, but it hadn't yet warmed his room, the one at the end of the hall.

At breakfast Alex was not in the mood to applaud his father's efforts at making pancakes. John Cold was not exactly a good cook; the only thing he knew how to do was pancakes, and they always turned out like rubber-tire tortillas. His children didn't want to hurt his feelings, so they pretended to eat them, but anytime he wasn't looking, they spit them out into the garbage pail. They had tried in vain to train Poncho to eat them: the dog was stupid, but not that stupid.

"When's Momma going to get better?" Nicole asked, trying to spear a rubbery pancake with her fork.

"Shut up, Nicole!" Alex replied, tired of hearing his younger sister ask the same question several times a week.

"Momma's going to die," Andrea added.

"Liar! She's not going to die!" shrieked Nicole.

"You two are just kids. You don't know what you're talking about!" Alex exclaimed.

"Here, girls. Quiet now. Momma is going to get better," John interrupted, without much conviction.

Alex was angry with his father, his sisters, Poncho, life in general -- even with his mother for getting sick. He rushed out of the kitchen, ready to leave without breakfast, but he tripped over the dog in the hallway and sprawled flat.

"Get out of my way, you stupid dog!" he yelled, and Poncho, delighted, gave him a loud slobbery kiss that left Alex's glasses spattered with saliva.

Yes, it was definitely one of those really bad days. Minutes later, his father discovered he had a flat tire on the van, and Alex had to help change it. They lost precious minutes and the three children were late getting to class. In the haste of leaving, Alex forgot his math homework. That did nothing to help his relationship with his teacher, whom Alex considered to be a pathetic little worm whose goal was to make his life miserable. As the last straw, he had also left his flute, and that afternoon he had orchestra practice; he was the soloist and couldn't miss the rehearsal.

 

The flute was the reason Alex had to leave during lunch to go back to the house. The storm had blown over but the sea was still rough and he couldn't take the short way along the beach road because the waves were crashing over the lip of the cliff and flooding the street. He took the long way, because he had only forty minutes.

For the last few weeks, ever since his mother got sick, a woman had come to clean, but that morning she had called to say that because of the storm she wouldn't be there. It didn't matter, she wasn't much help and the house was always dirty anyway. Even from outside, you could see the signs; it was as if the whole place was sad. The air of neglect began with the garden and spread through every room of the house, to the farthest corners.

Alex could feel his family coming apart. His sister Andrea, who had always been different from the other girls, was now more Andrea than ever; she was always dressing in costumes, and she wandered lost for hours in her fantasy world, where she imagined witches lurking in the mirrors and aliens swimming in her soup. She was too old for that. At twelve, Alex thought, she should be interested in boys, or piercing her ears. As for Nicole, the youngest in the family, she was collecting a zoo full of animals ...

City of the Beasts (Large Print). Copyright © by Isabel Allende. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Reading Group Guide

About The Book:

In the midst of his mother's struggle with cancer, fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the opportunity to take the trip of a lifetime. Accompanying his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, Alexander sets off on an expedition to the remote world of the Amazon. On this mission he meets Nadia, the young daughter of their local guide and together they begin a magical and mystical adventure.

Questions For Discussion:

1. Alexander goes into a destructive rage after witnessing his father chopping off his mother's hair. How does this reaction help the reader understand the pain that he is experiencing? How do his reactions to his mother's illness compare to those of his sisters?
   
   
2. Kate Cold purposely isn't waiting at the airport for Alexander when he arrives in New York. How does this help to prepare him for their journey to the Amazon? Discuss the mistakes he makes and what important lessons he learns from them.
   
   
3. Describe the relationship between Alexander and his grandmother. How is this relationship different from the typical relationship between a grandmother and her grandson? How does their relationship help Alexander cope with both his mother's illness and the journey into the Amazon? Are there any instances in the story when the relationship changes?
   
   
4. Describe how the male chauvinistic ideals of Mauro Carias and Ludovic Leblanc's clash with the strong-minded women on the journey.
   
   
5. What are totemic animals? Describe the circumstances of how Alexander and Nadia's totemic animals are revealed to them.
   
   
6. How do Alexander and Nadia's strengths and weaknesses compliment one another? Give examples from the book of how they help each other overcome their personal weaknesses by relying on the other's personal strengths.
   
   
7. How does Dr. Omayra Torres deceive the other members of the group? How are her motives ironic?
   
   
8. What is the symbolism of the crystal eggs and the water of health? Why do Nadia and Alexander risk their lives for these things? What do they give up in order to attain them?
   
   
9. Explain the irony surrounding Ludovic Leblanc. How does his public image and reputation contrast with his personal actions? How do his opinions about the Indians and the Beast change as the story evolves?
   
   
10. Who is Walimai? What role does he play in the story?
    
    
11. Describe the Beasts. What is unique about them? How do they compare to the image that the members of the expedition had projected?
    
    

About The Author:

Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She is the author of these international best-sellers for adult readers: Portrait in Sepia, Daughter of Fortune, The Infinite Plan, Eva Luna, Of Love and Shadows, and The House of the Spirits, the short story collection The Stories of Eva Luna, the memoir Paula, and Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses. She lives in California.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
New York Times bestselling novelist Isabel Allende tries her hand at writing for younger audiences in a thrill-seeking novel set in the Amazon rainforest.

After Alexander Cold's mother is stricken with cancer, his parents send the boy to stay with his gruff grandmother, Kate. A writer for International Geographic, Kate whisks Alex off to the Amazon, where she's to research a story about "a gigantic, possibly humanoid creature" that's celebrated in local mythology. With a group of explorers and doctors -- including the young Nadia -- they journey down the mystical Amazon, battling anacondas and other hazards. But when Alex and Nadia get recruited for a mission to save the People of the Mist, the visit brings the two face-to-face with a colony of Beasts, legendary creatures whose discovery has long been a goal for courageous adventurers.

Filled with the sights and sounds of a dangerous trip down the Amazon, City of the Beasts is the first in a trilogy. Allende's work will leave her fans anxious to learn more about threatened cultures and efforts to save the rainforest, in a fantasy that's both extraordinary and awe-inspiring. Matt Warner

A moody American teen finds himself up the Amazon without a paddle in this aimlessly meandering and cliché-ridden fantasy. Alex's mother's struggle with cancer has forced him into the care of his grandmother, a writer for International Geographic magazine, which has mounted an expedition into the heart of the rainforest to observe the strange monsters known only as the Beasts. Predictably enough, the expedition team consists of a variety of types, including a beautiful doctor, a dashing guide and his mystical daughter Nadia, an egotistical anthropologist, a sinister Indian aide, and a number of expendable supernumeraries. After the requisite agonizing trip up the longest river in the world, Alex and Nadia are finally ushered by an ancient shaman into the Eye of the World. There they encounter the People of the Mist, a-surprise, surprise-pristine indigenous civilization, who have evolved a symbiotic relationship with their gods, the Beasts. The Beasts, it turns out, are gigantic sloths-leftovers from some prehistoric era that have by dint of their exceptionally slow metabolism and consequently long lives developed some intelligence and even rudimentary language. Alex and Nadia are rechristened for their totem animals (Jaguar and Eagle) and go on perilous spirit quests. The jacket blurb boasts that the novel is "teeming with magical realism"; leaving aside the question of whether magical realism can actually teem, this story, Allende's (Portrait in Sepia, 2001, etc.) first for children, does anything but. There are some fantastic touches, but most of what passes for magical realism seems introduced only for narrative convenience (such as Alex's sudden ability to transcend linguisticbarriers by "listening with his heart"). Other potentially fantastic elements are drearily reduced by pseudo-scientific explanation to the realm of the mundane (such as the true nature of the Beasts). The narrative as a whole suffers from extraordinarily labored language: " 'Remember whom you're speaking to, you little twerp,' the writer calmly interrupted, seizing him firmly by the shirt and paralyzing him with the glare of her fearsome blue eyes." Whether this is the fault of the original writing or the translation from the Spanish is immaterial; this flaw, combined with the general pointlessness of the plot, makes this offering-all 416 pages of it-an excruciating experience. (Fiction. 10+)

Kirkus Reviews