Mission Down Under (Hannah and the Angels) - Softcover

Lowery, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679890815 ISBN 13: 9780679890812

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers, 1998

Synopsis

Hanna is magically whisked away from her music class and sent to Australia to help a young boy named Ian locate and free a group of endangered animals that are being held captive by poachers. Original.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6-With a refreshing lightness and robust sense of adventure, this first installment in a new series is a welcome alternative to the standard fare. One day in her sixth-grade music class, Hannah begins to play her flute upside down and she suddenly finds herself magically transported to the Australian Outback. There she teams up with her new friend, Ian, and George, a tracker who is searching for animal poachers. Hannah is not sure why she's there, but when she starts to receive messages in the sky from angels, she is drawn further into Ian's and George's quest to save some of the Outback's endangered animals. The message of helping others comes through loud and clear (as also evidenced by a coupon in the book for readers to "Earn Your Golden Wings" by describing a good deed of their own). The text almost seems like a diary in that it's interspersed with Hannah's drawings of her life and items she encounters in her travels. Indeed, the author brings a childlike wonder to things Australian and it's clear she did her research. Readers will look forward to learning more about Hannah and seeing what the angels have in mind for her next mission.
Kristen Oravec, Woodridge Middle School, Peninsula, OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 4^-6. The first in a series of books about sixth-grader Hannah, who finds herself magically whisked to Australia through the intervention of her angels. The angels are mostly a device used to move Hannah in and out of various locales; the book is much more easily labeled as adventure or perhaps mystery. Once Hannah is in Australia, her mission becomes clear: she is to help a boy named Ian and a wildlife service employee track down poachers. The angels leave clues, and Hannah tries to follow through--with mixed results. Hannah's first-person voice is very readable, and the text is highlighted with her drawings and notes, which also move the story along. The series has the advantage of taking readers places they might not otherwise normally go in their fiction. For instance in book 2, Searching for Lulu (0-679-89080-7), Hannah is off to Kenya to find a special medicine for an African girl who is ill. A glossary adds to an already fact-filled story that gives lots of interesting information about Australia. Ilene Cooper

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0679890815
• ISBN 13: 9780679890812
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 127