Peak: A Heart-Pounding Tale of Adventure, Father-Son Dynamics, and Mountain Climbing (A Peak Marcello Adventure, 1) Paperback – Illustrated, August 1, 2008

From jail to the top of the world!Basically, the plot of this book is a kid named Peak Marcello (whose parents use to be climbers) tries to climb a skyscraper but gets caught by the police who thought he was a terrorist right before he made it to the top. Then in trial his dad shows up and offers to take Peak to Tibet,China away from New York in hope that eventually people would forget about his climb.Then, Peak’s dad surprises him and takes him to climb Mt. Everest. As I mentioned the book starts out in New York. Before he climbs Everest, his dad takes him to Tibet, China to get his climbing gear. After getting his climbing gear, the rest of the book takes place on Mt. Everest.The Main characters are Peak,Peak’s Dad and Mom,The Two Peas (Peak’s twin sisters), and his language arts teacher. The Main character,Peak,has an angry grudge towards his father for leaving them when Peak was little; however, as they get farther up the mountain they start to trust each other and that grudge slowly wears out.The book is written in a perspective where Peak is writing this book in a moleskine notebook as he climbs Mt. Everest. He explains this at the beginning of the book. I think the author of this book (Roland Smith) nailed the way the story is being told. The way it’s written, Peak sounds just like a fourteen year old boy trying to reach the top of Everest. If that’s what the author was going for, he did a great job.I think the theme of this book is that it’s not the mountain that matters,it’s what lies at the bottom. I know this because on the last page of the book (page 246) Peak says: “The only thing you’ll find on the summit of Mount Everest is a divine view. The things that really matter lie far below.” I don’t think the author would have made those the last two sentences if he didn’t want the reader to remember that.Overall, I thought the book was great! I couldn’t put it down!

Good book, fast shipping, excellent condition. This book came in exactly as expected and the content is perfect for a freshman boy. My son had to write a short paper over the summer for the first day of school, and thoroughly enjoyed this book. The story is about a young man who has lost his way and when his life completely changes (because his living situation does), he not only thrives physically but also learns life lessons along the way. He learns that everyone is not as fortunate as he is, although it may not appear to him that he IS fortunate, and he also learns the value in putting other people first. He learns to appreciate the selfless acts of others and pay those acts forward to help the less fortunate. My son is not an avid reader and it was no problem getting him to stay focused on this story. Well written, well packaged, well shipped. Highly recommend for this age group and from this seller.

I chose this book as a read aloud to summer school students. Smith provides the perfect combination at adventure and imagination. Students can relate and identify with the characters of Peak and Sung-Jo. Twists and turns. I would highly recommend this book to students, teachers and anyone who wants an adventure without leaving their reading chair!

Fantastic story for middle school girls or boys (and adults too!). This has all the elements of a great story with a great plot, good character development and growth for the protagonist. Good vocabulary and sentence structure for growing reading proficiency etc. I would definitely recommend.

My son who is entering high school (who can read well but doesn’t now enjoy reading ) was reading this book for an assigned reading project, told me this was a great book! So any book that gets that response from my teen, gets 5 STARS from me. I’ve read about a quarter of the book so far. We also purchased this book on audible .

I read this with orally with my teenage grandson who has ADD. He tried reading it on his own, got tangled up in the vocabulary, lost the meaning of the sentences, and finally his interest.I like orally reading with him and he brought this book. We took turns reading, stopping at the unknown words and discussing the book. When we fininished we both felt satisfied.While this in considered teen literature, it is interesting to adults too. In fact the young man developed into a very responsible young adult by the end of the book.

I had to read a book about a sporting teen for a book challenge. I don't much like sports books, but was browsing lists of young adult sports fiction when I came across a precis of this and it sounded interesting. It was a really enjoyable read - descriptive, gripping and had good character development. I am going to read the rest of the series.

This book is AMAZING and super interesting amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing

I bought this book for the more able readers in my Year 5 class (9-10 years olds) as we were learning about mountains. I took it on holiday with me at half term to read before giving it to them & loved it. It is a great story with enough realistic mountain details that they feel they are reading a good adventure book & at the same time learning such a lot about high mountain environments. All the factual things we have been studying came alive in this book. Apart from a couple of swear words (which we discussed & decided were acceptable in the context they were used, but not to be repeated by the children!) it is suitable for children of this age.

Cleverly structured as well as interesting, from beginning to end.First read this book 7 years ago and still a fun read.

Fantastic book by Roland Smith a MUST read for any one.