Review Detail

THE JAGUAR STONES: MIDDLEWORLD is about a fourteen year old boy named Max Murphy whose parents are archeologists who are experts on the ancient Mayans. Shortly into Max's summer vacation, his parents disappear while on assignment in San Xavier, a country the authors, J & P Voelkel, based on Belize. Max flies down to San Xavier in hopes of recovering his parents. He arrives to find his uncle is involved in smuggling Mayan artifacts and may know more about Max's parents' disappearance than he is letting on.

As a teacher who teaches struggling readers in the eighth grade, I would not recommend THE JAGUAR STONES to any of my students because I think the reading level would be too difficult for them, and they may get lost with all the Mayan terminology. I would, however, highly recommend it for students who are accomplished readers and love history.

I would also not do this as a read-aloud to my class. There are a couple reasons. One big one is the fact that roosters are referred to as "cocks" way too many times in the novel. I'm afraid my students, who are not mature in the best of circumstances, would not handle that well. But also, I think some of the language that Lord 6-Rabbit and his mother, Lady Coco, use would be very confusing. They use the pronouns "thou" and "thee" almost exclusively. It would be cool if I could somehow tie THE JAGUAR STONES in with a unit on Shakespeare, but I think my students would have to overcome too many hurdles to fully understand the content.

There are some very humorous scenes in the novel. Lord 6-Rabbit and his mother are royal ancient spirits who need to use the bodies of two monkeys to reappear in the present day. The best line of the book comes from this scene. Lord 6-Rabbit tells his mother, also in her monkey body, "What a torment to have a sensitive nose when one's one body reeks like a dung heap."

There is another Mayan spirit, Ah Pukuh, who has a horrible problem with flatulence. Stuff I think young boys will really get a kick out of.

A small warning to parents of kind of young, advanced readers who might like this book. There is mention of human sacrifices, cock fighting, and cannibalism, although none actually take place.

I personally loved this book. It was a book that while I was reading it, I was pretty much addicted to. If the book wasn't in my hands, I was wondering what was happening to Max and his companion, Lola, in their quest to find the Max's parents. I'll admit that I often had to refer to the glossary in the back of the book because there were so many Mayan terms to deal with. With that said, I would read it again and can't wait for book two which comes out in December 2010.