How to use this Page

An Accidental Adventure #2: We Dine With Cannibals by C. Alexander London

Review by Chris Singer

About the author (from his website):

C. Alexander London is an award-winning author of nonfiction for grown-ups (under a slightly different not very secret name) and, as his official biography says, he really is an accomplished skeet-shooter, having once won a 12-gauge tournament because no one else had signed up in his age group. He’s also a Master SCUBA diver, and, most excitingly (to him) a fully licensed and accredited librarian. He used to know the Dewey Decimal System from memory. He doesn’t anymore. While traveling as a journalist, he did indeed watch television in 23 countries (Burmese soap operas were the most confusing; Cuban news reports were the most dull). He survived an erupting volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a hurricane on small island in the Caribbean, 4 civil wars (one of them was over by the time he got there, thankfully), and a mysterious bite on his little toe in the jungles of Thailand. The bite got infected and swollen and gross and gave him a deep mistrust of lizards. Although he has had many adventures, he really does prefer curling up on the couch and watching some good reality television or reading a book. Like Oliver and Celia Navel, he enjoys danger and intrigue far more when it’s happening to somebody else.

About the book (from his website):

In their second unwanted adventure, We Dine with Cannibals, Oliver and Celia will travel from the ruins of ancient temples to the shadowy forests of the Amazon. They’ll need all their reality TV survival skills when they ride a llama, race the rapids, and even fly an airplane! If that’s not enough excitement for you (it is decidedly too much excitement for Oliver and Celia Navel), they’ll be forced to learn the proper etiquette for a cannibal feast and confront the strangest and most brutal rite of passage ever devised by human imagination: Dodgeball.

My take on the book:

The second installment in London’s An Accidental Adventure series has readers following the Navel twins on another reluctant adventure. This time they travel to the Amazon Rain Forest where they must use all of their reality-television survival skills to avoid becoming the guests of honor at a cannibal feast!

We Dine With Cannibals is a tremendously fun and action-packed reading adventure which is sure to leave readers wanting more. The story is filled with twists and turns to keep readers guessing at what is going to happen next. I love how London uses information (real facts sprinkled with some myths and legends) about the Amazon Rain Forest to set the landscape for Oliver and Celia’s adventure. This not only sparks interest in the story itself, but is practically guaranteed to send young readers to the internet in search of more information about the Amazon.

I have no reservations about recommending this and the first book in the series, We Are Not Eaten By Yaks, to parents, teachers and librarians.

Be sure to check out Book Dads later this week as I will be posting an exclusive interview with C. Alexander London.

Review by Chris Singer

About the author:

C. Alexander London is an award-winning author of nonfiction for grown-ups (under a slightly different not very secret name) and, as his official biography says, he really is an accomplished skeet-shooter, having once won a 12-gauge tournament because no one else had signed up in his age group. He’s also a Master SCUBA diver, and, most excitingly (to him) a fully licensed and accredited librarian. He used to know the Dewey Decimal System from memory. He doesn’t anymore.

While traveling as a journalist, he did indeed watch television in 23 countries (Burmese soap operas were the most confusing; Cuban news reports were the most dull). He survived an erupting volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a hurricane on small island in the Caribbean, 4 civil wars (one of them was over by the time he got there, thankfully), and a mysterious bite on his little toe in the jungles of Thailand. The bite got infected and swollen and gross and gave him a deep mistrust of lizards.

Although he has had many adventures, he really does prefer curling up on the couch and watching some good reality television or reading a book. Like Oliver and Celia Navel, he enjoys danger and intrigue far more when it’s happening to somebody else.

About the book:

Eleven-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel do not like adventures–in fact, they would have preferred it if they had been left out of this story altogether. But, unfortunately for the twins, they live on the 4-1/2th floor of the Explorers Club with their parents–world-famous adventurers and daredevils. They’ve been dragged from adventure to adventure their entire lives, when all they’ve wanted to do is watch television. Now, their mother has gone missing and their father has bet the evil Sir Edmund S. Tithletorpe-Schmidt III that he’ll make one of the greatest discoveries in history. And the stakes of his bet? Oliver and Celia will be his servants until the end of high school. Which, when you have only just finished fifth grade, is a long way off. So, the twins must give up their summer vacation to explore Tibet, where they fall out of airplanes, battle Yetis, discover secret caves, fly over waterfalls, and ride one very large yak. If they can survive their ordeal, decipher the clues, and outwit Sir Edmund, they might just reunite their family, save the world . . . and get cable television.

My take on the book:

This book is just a tremen