Synopsis
The author--the youngest person ever to climb Mount Everest--offers his inspirational and gripping account of courage and frustration as he endures many hardships and overcomes many obstacles to reach his goal.
Reviews
Grade 7 Up-Readers who enjoyed John Krakauer's Into Thin Air (Villard, 1997) will also be interested in Pfetzer's credible and inspiring climbing story that puts both authors on Everest on that tragic May morning in 1996. In 1992, Pfetzer, then 12, was dreaming of mountains before he'd ever seen one. Serendipity provided him with mentors at critical junctures who propelled him from a Rhode Island climbing gym to high-altitude expeditions to several continents in less than two years. This quick-reading autobiography is generally well written, marred only by some occasional redundancy, and is enhanced by a section of color photos. Pfetzer enthusiastically describes the hard work, training, and sacrifice related to big climbs and provides insight into both the physical and developmental heights he has scaled. He learned about sponsorship and compromises; about luck and timing; about instinct and rationality; about the difference between being a paying member of a trek and a paid leader of one; about challenge and the optimism that moves one forward. His motives are questioned and his qualifications are doubted. Often, the cocky, invulnerable teenage voice is tempered by the cautious voice of experience. What can he-or any climber-say when faced with the death of comrades? Only that he will be better prepared, better conditioned, smarter, and that he will survive. Pfetzer aptly renders the breathtaking beauty and exhilaration that are his reward. Finally, faced with his father's debilitation from cancer, the young man reconsiders his short-term goals and returns to finish high school, with an eye on future challenges.
Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Jr. High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In May 1996, Mark Pfetzer at age 16 was the youngest climber on Mount Everest to reach 26,000 feet, and his gripping autobiography focuses exclusively on his mountain climbing achievements. Recounted in diary format, Pfetzer's dense but taut story opens during the 1996 Everest expedition, then jumps back to a 1992 advanced camping trip, when his passion for climbing first ignited. An advertisement for a mountaineering trip in Nepal sparks his imagination and determination (he must raise $5000 for the excursion), and the experience starts Pfetzer off to the farthest (and highest) reaches of the globe, on to Peru, Ecuador, Tanzania and finally to Mount Everest. Even though he fails to reach the summit on either of his two Everest trips (the second of which takes place during the fatality-filled 1996 expedition described by Krakauer in Into Thin Air), Pfetzer does set an altitude record for his age. While some of his inspirational comments about going for one's dreams come off as a bit condescending, and a few of the descriptions and metaphors have an adult flavor, readers are sure to be fascinated by the suspenseful storytelling and the wealth of insider details. For instance, at high altitudes climbers can break a rib just by coughing; those who reach the summit often urinate on the peak to commemorate the event. Even readers with no interest in rappelling will likely be swept up in the details of the people and places Pfetzer meets in his travels. A glossary and a chapter by chapter "Cast of Characters" will help readers unfamiliar with the world of climbing. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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