(Review) Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble by D. Robert Pease

Summery from Goodreads:

"Noah lives for piloting spaceships through time, dodging killer robots and saving Earth’s animals from extinction. Life couldn’t be better. However, the twelve-year-old time traveler soon learns it could be a whole lot worse. His mom is abducted and taken to thirty-first century Mars; his dad becomes stranded in the Ice Age; and Noah is attacked at every turn by a foe bent on destroying a newly habitable, post-apocalyptic Earth.

"Traveling through time in the family’s immense spaceship, Noah, a paraplegic from birth, must somehow care for the thousands of animals on board, while finding a way to rescue his parents. Along the way, he discovers his mother and father aren’t who he thought they were, and there is strength inside him he didn’t know he had."

4/5 stars

     I  was overly excited about reading and reviewing this book; the cover and synopsis are appealing and it's difficult to find a negative review of this novel. When I started reading it, I appreciated the simple presentation of difficult concepts, like time and space travel (I would, however, suggest that younger readers read A Wrinkle in Time to explore those concepts more extensively before diving into this novel). The characters were diverse and fun, the plot was intriguing, and the writing was very good. I would, overall, say this was a fantastic and fun middle grade novel.

     There were parts of this novel that were very geared towards younger readers. Parts of the novel were predictable (for an extensive reader), rushed, or not pursued to its full potential. The mindset, however, of younger Noah was fairly accurate and fun to explore.

     I would definitely suggest this novel for younger readers with a taste for sci-fi, robots, space, animals, etc. The novel was realistic and fun to read though long enough to deter most younger students without an explicit taste for reading. If I was an elementary teacher, I would definitely add this title to my shelf.

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THE AUTHOR
D. Robert Pease has been interested in creating worlds since childhood. From building in the sandbox behind his house, to drawing fantastical worlds with paper and pencil, there has hardly been a time he hasn't been off on some adventure in his mind, to the dismay of parents and teachers alike. Also, since the moment he could read, books have consumed vast swaths of his life. From The Mouse and the Motorcycle, to The Lord of the Rings, worlds just beyond reality have called to him like Homer's Sirens. It's not surprising then he chose to write stories of his own. Each filled with worlds just beyond reach, but close enough we can all catch a glimpse of ourselves in the characters.
Discover ways to connect with the author by visiting his site at www.drobertpease.com