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Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that there are some discussions about having sex, not graphic, and a few murders. The main character, a 14-year-old girl, is blindly trusting to an almost absurd degree.

Families can talk about Symme's Hole and the whole "hollow earth" theory. There's lots available on the Internet. Why do people continue to believe in things like this, despite clear and compelling evidence of its falsehood? What is it about secret advanced civilizations, such as this one, Atlantis, Hyperborea, and others, that hold such appeal for so many people? Why are people so easily tricked by myths and urban legends?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Matt Berman

Author Geraldine McCaughrean is apparently in love with lyrical description, and with whatever is the authorial equivalent of the sound of her own voice. Granted, her subject matter, Antarctica, is one to inspire flights of poetry. But at some point either author or editor needs to put a lid on it, and no one did here. It's a pity too, because the less experienced or impatient readers who will be put off and give up will miss out on an unusual and exciting 200-page survival story hidden within this nearly 400-page book.

It takes awhile to get to Antarctica, and in the meantime readers may also be annoyed by the heroine, whose stupidity in the first part of the book strains credulity. When Victor takes her to Paris, he leaves her mother behind even though she was supposed to accompany them. A sensible girl, which she is supposed to be, might have gotten suspicious. Especially when she finds her mother's passport in his pocket. And when he deliberately destroys the cell phone. And when he suggests that they take an unplanned jaunt off to Antarctica, and says her mother won't mind. And so on. But no, Sym is all passivity and trust. News of the depths of his duplicity later in the book come as revelations to Sym, but the reader will have seen them coming a long way off.

From The Book

I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while now--which is ridiculous, since he's been dead for ninety years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead, too, and then the age difference won't matter.

Besides, he isn't dead inside my head. We talk about all kinds of things. From whether hair color can change spontaneously to whether friends are better than family, and the best age for marrying: 14 or 125. Generally speaking, he knows more than I do, but on that particular subject we are even. He wasn't married--at least, he wasn't when he died, which must have substantially cut down his chances.

Plot Summary:

Sym, a young teen outcast, is hard of hearing, obsessed with the Antarctic, and in love with Titus Oates, who died on the Scott Expedition 90 years earlier. When old family friend Victor takes her to Paris, and then spirits her off to the Antarctic, she is thrilled. But Victor is dangerously unhinged, and determined to trek into the heart of the frozen continent to search for the mythical Symme's Hole, supposedly an entrance to an underground civilization at the heart of the hollow earth.

Related Books:

Other Books by Geraldine McCaughrean:
The Pirate's Son
Not the End of the World
Peter Pan in Scarlet

Books with Related Themes
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Toughboy and Sister by Kirkpatrick Hill
The Iceberg Hermit by Arthur Roth
Through the Hidden Door by Rosemary Wells
I Am the Ice Worm by MaryAnn Easley
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance by Jennifer Armstrong
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Related Web Sites:
Author's Site

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