Taken

by David Massey

Overview

The trip of a lifetime turns into a fight to the death when six extreme athletes are TAKEN hostage by pirates off the coast of Africa. By the author of TORN.

Six crew members are toughing it out, trying to come together as a team to sail around the world on a grueling challenge for charity. Four are teen military veterans disabled in combat: They're used to being pushed to the limit. But nothing could have prepared them for being kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army. Suddenly, the trip of a lifetime turns into a dark journey into the African jungle. Taken hostage by a notorious warlord and his band of child soldiers, how will Rio, Ash, Marcus, Jen, Charis, and Izzy survive?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545661294
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

DAVID MASSEY's experience as an emergency supplies consultant helped inspire his debut novel, TORN, which Booklist called "deeply affecting" in a starred review. The recent Paralympic Games in London helped spark the idea for TAKEN. David lives with his wife in the West Midlands of England. Friend him on Facebook at DRMasseyBooks and follow him on Twitter @DavidRMassey.

Read an Excerpt

From TAKENSuddenly, the soldiers shriek and trill and scream, firing shots into the air. The sound sends shivers down my spine. Then the unruly ranks of boys part like a wave and a tall, thin man strides over the crest of the sandbank. He is wearing tight, beaded plaits underneath a green military beret, and is much older than the others. His face is lined and he's got a pistol in his hand. I decide that it's a statement: It's all he needs... Following him is a blank-faced child soldier -- a girl of about fourteen...She clutches a machine gun that dangles around her neck on a length of frayed, twisted string, and she wears a necklace of cream-colored beads. When she gets closer I see that they are teeth. Maybe they are from her victims... An awful, expectant hush descends. All I can hear is the pounding of my heart and the crash of the breakers....I'm out of my mind with fear, shaking so badly I can barely stay upright... "You may have heard of me," the man says. "My name is Moses Mwemba. And you are now prisoners of the Lord's Resistance Army."

Editorial Reviews

Praise for TORN* "Vivid and terrifying...[an] intense page-turner...Elinor makes a winningly courageous, tough-minded protagonist-narrator who is nonetheless deeply affected by what she sees and experiences. Readers will be, too." — BOOKLIST, starred review"TORN shows readers the ghost of hope and desperate longing for peace that keeps pulling us back to Afghanistan. A powerful and important novel." — Trent Reedy, author of WORDS IN THE DUST"[An] intense and heart-wrenching debut novel....Massey delicately and impressively explores military politics, the stress of combat, and the roots of terrorism in a story about...the heavy toll [war] exacts on all parties involved." — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "An intriguing mystery and a terrific first novel." — SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL"This is a terrific debut novel. The reconnaissance missions and battle scenes are taut and full of tension and suspense. The author has done his research..." — LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION "Saturated with realistic details, this wartime mystery adventure is highly explosive." — KIRKUS REVIEWS

From the Publisher

2014-07-16
What's meant to be a symbolic round-the-world sail goes horribly off course when the yacht and its teenage crew, four disabled British veterans of the Middle East conflict and two able-bodied assistants, is boarded off Tanzania by members of the Lord's Resistance Army. Present-tense narrator Rio, a Brit of Jamaican and Sikh descent, is one of the assistants. A potential Olympic sailor, she blunders into a psychodynamic she doesn't fully understand, particularly the tension between charismatic Ash, who walks on two prosthetic legs, and his gorgeous girlfriend, the other assistant. But they are not on the boat for long. Led by the brutal (fictional) second-in-command to Joseph Kony himself, a band of mostly child soldiers manhandles the teens across Tanzania and into the Congolese jungle. Rio and Ash's instant attraction fuels a puerile, almost embarrassing romantic subplot that stretches out along the bitter miles. Devoutly religious diabetic Izzy provides both tension—what happens when the insulin runs out?—and conscience, counseling the others to love their child captors. A creepy, witch-doctor-like LRA flunky seems painfully gratuitous, there to provide an extra fillip of exoticism—as though the machete-wielding children, including the dead-eyed girl Rio calls the Empty Child, aren't horror enough. Contrivances and coincidences further undermine the tale. Despite this book's currency, Allan Stratton's Chanda's War (2008) remains a far better fictional treatment of the tragedy of child soldiers. (Adventure. 14-16)

Kirkus Reviews