Six Days

by Philip Webb

Overview

Will they find the lost treasure before time runs out? A gripping adventure about a desperate race through the wastelands of future London to find a relic of extraordinary power.For Cass and Wilbur, life as scavengers is all they've ever known -- rummaging the ruins of London in search of a precious, powerful relic no one, not even their new Russian masters, has ever seen.But when Erin and Peyto, two strangers from a faraway place, show up and claim they hold the key to locating the mysterious missing artifact, the treasure hunt takes on a lethal urgency. If the kids don't find the crucial object in SIX DAYS, their world will come crashing to an end!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545388290
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2011
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Philp Webb works as a "user experience consultant," helping his clients bridge the gap between technology and humanity. He has a computer science degree and a masters in human computer interaction. He lives with his family in West London.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 5–8—Philip Webb's suspenseful science fiction tale (Scholastic/Chicken House, 2011) is perfectly suited to audio format. The action-packed story is narrated by Cass, a feisty 15-year-old. She and her younger brother, Wilbur, live in post-apocalyptic London and work as scavengers, or scavs, for the ruling Russian Vlads. Scavs are charged with pilfering through the ruins in search of a mysterious and powerful artifact. Wilbur's obsession with a comic book character provides a lead and a fortuitous meeting with Erin and Peyto, young travelers from another time, who are also searching for the artifact. Supposedly the world will come to an end if the artifact isn't found in six days. Narrator Jo Hall gives Cass a spot-on, thick cockney accent that sometimes requires careful listening. She skillfully uses a variety of accents, as well as different tones and pacing, to provide unique voices for the assortment of characters. The robotic voice of Maleva, who is kept alive by a battery-powered suit, is a bit too stilted and becomes annoying. The other voices are pleasing and easily distinguished. The plot is engaging, but the ending seems a bit rushed and not completely satisfying. Listeners may ponder the fate of Wilbur and the 47 other "sleepers" who remain in suspended animation when the story concludes. Despite a few flaws, listeners will enjoy the story.—Patricia McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA

School Library Journal

In this crackerjack adventure, a pair of Cockney trash-pickers and their spaceman friend seek a MacGuffin in the ruins of post-apocalyptic London.

Fifteen-year-old Cass and her kid brother Wilbur are usually stuck scavving under a gangmaster's careful eye, pulling London to pieces and tossing it in crusher chutes. The Vlads have been running Britain ever since they conquered the world 100 years ago, and heaven help any Londoner who sneaks out of her lifelong job of searching for object of the Vlads' desire:the artifact. Nobody knows what the artifact is, but Wilbur, convinced his comic books tell him how to find it, sneaks off repeatedly into forbidden neighborhoods. This is how he finds Peyto and Erin, strange kids who say the artifact is a flinder, and they need it to repair their wounded spaceship. Maybe Wilbur can help them—maybe he's evendestinedto. Now they're caught in a mad spiral of (occasionally incoherent) adventure, hopping into space and back, fleeing from Vlads, hiding in the British Museum, fighting drone soldiers in powered battlesuits. Cass has a lovely, rich narrative voice ("We go through it like a horse 'n' cart through a cake"), and is a feisty heroine, a much better protagonist than destined savior Wilbur would have been.

Even if events don't always quite hold together, it's such a racketing good time it doesn't matter.(Science fiction. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews