Strap Yourself in For Summer Reading!

Kasey Cox

Blackberries, ipod, Xbox, blog, HD DVD, satellite TV, TiVo, 250-channels-and-nothing-on, email, websurf, mp3, txt msg, Razr phone. News bytes scroll at the bottom of the screen while the newscaster talks over top. Everyone in the family scheduled to be in a different place in the same hour. The Fantastic Four, the X-men, Heroclix, Sky High, Zoom, Spiderman, The Incredibles.

If more than half these terms apply regularly to your life … if you are the parent of a teen … if you love big summer blockbuster movies … if you’re looking for fun, exciting summer reading for a short attention span, I’ve got a reading suggestion for you! Look no further than James Patterson’s young adult trilogy, “Maximum Ride.”

Patterson, is probably best known for his thrillers, one series featuring Detective Alex Cross, and the other series known as “The Women’s Murder Club”. He also penned a romance, “Sam’s Letters to Jennifer”, which reads quite a bit like a Nicholas Sparks novel. But it was “When the Wind Blows”, published in 1998, with which he truly tried his wings (oh! Bad pun, you’ll soon see!) in more fantastical writing.

“When the Wind Blows” features young “Max”, a child who is the result of horrible, secret genetic experiments. Most of the offspring of these experiments died. A few lived, and grew wings. For those readers who could suspend their disbelief, “When the Wind Blows” brought a surprising amount of enjoyment and thrills, as well as bringing Patterson more international sales for this one book than any of his other previous novels. The sequel, “The Lake House” (2005), however, was a disappointment for many, who felt it was a lot weaker in plot, the characters less developed, the action scenes dragged out. Perhaps this sequel didn’t work because Patterson was giving all his snappy writing and emotional wallop to the newer characters he developed for the first “Maximum Ride” book, which was released almost simultaneously with “The Lake House.”

Lucky for young adult readers, Patterson took his ideas from “When the Wind Blows” and re-vamped them for “Maximum Ride”. The author explains, succinctly and carefully at the beginning of each book in this new series that, while there were “bird kids” in the two previous adult books, and one was a child named “Max” who had other genetically-altered “siblings” such as herself, these stories would be about different characters.

Here, “Max” is the nickname of “Maximum Ride”, a sixteen year-old Avian-Human hybrid who takes care of herself and five others like her, as best she can. With the help of a sympathetic lab guy, they escaped the lab two years ago, and have lived in hiding in the mountains of California. Since then, they have discovered and honed their abilities and their fighting skills. Good thing, too, because ….. you’ll have to discover for yourself.

Max’s tough-talking but obviously large-hearted narration rang true for me. I believe that most teens today – as well as their parents and teachers – will recognize and sympathize with her voice as representative of many of her non-winged contemporaries. And for folks who love exciting, cinematic fight scenes, the descriptions at first-rate, written in short, hard bursts with visual language and not a lot of blood. Plus, for kids (and adults) who are bringing a shorter attention span to summer reading, the chapters are short and the action keeps you reading.

Now that I’ve read all three books, I have to tell you I enjoyed the first book – “Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment” – the best of the three. That said, once you read the first book, you’d be hard pressed to stop there. The high-octane fight scenes, narrow escapes, and amazing revelations continue into “Maximum Ride: School’s Out Forever” and finish with the just-released, final installment, “Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports.” The books are well-named and have come at the perfect time for a great summer ride!