Jackie's Wild Seattle
by Will Hobbs (Author)
How do you rescue a wild coyote trapped in an elevator in a downtown Seattle office building? How do you save an injured baby seal at the bottom of a cliff with the tide coming in? Fourteen-year-old Shannon Young, visiting from New Jersey, is about to find out.
Shannon's parents, both doctors, are working in refugee camps overseas while she and her little brother, Cody, are spending the summer in Seattle with their mysterious uncle Neal. To their surprise, Uncle Neal drives an ambulance for Jackie's Wild Seattle, an animal rescue center. Shannon and Cody join their uncle and his partner, a border collie, for nine weeks of breathless, sometimes reckless, often hilarious adventure chasing after whatever wild critters need help. When Uncle Neal is injured by a red-tailed hawk, Shannnon summons her courage and becomes the one who rescues the animals.
Jackie, who runs the center, believes in the circle of healing, and in Shannon's circle everyone is in need of healing. Traumatized by the events of September 11, Cody is sure disaster is about to strike. Shannon wants to believe in Tyler, a teenage working off his court-appointed time at the wildlife center, but Uncle Neal thinks he's a ticking time bomb. Meanwhile, Neal is keeping secrets of his own.
Beneath the excitement, there's always an undertow of danger. Everything is uncertain, and home is so very far away.
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Kirkus Review - Children
An unsubtle but absorbing story about animal rehabilitation, the state of the world, fear, achievement, and trust. When 14-year-old Shannon and her little brother Cody are sent to visit Uncle Neal for the summer, they have no idea that they’ll end up speeding around the greater Seattle area in an animal ambulance, rescuing various raccoons, beavers, bear cubs, and birds of prey that have been injured or orphaned. Adventure begins when Uncle Neal is injured by a hawk and Shannon takes over the rescues, wrestling a bear cub down from the rafters of a shed, rappelling down a cliff to rescue a seal, and talking a coyote out of an elevator in a downtown building. Cody loves the animals but continues to dream about the September 11 terrorist attacks, which he witnessed in person from a cliff in New Jersey. His subsequent obsession with disasters of all kinds exists alongside Shannon’s fear for her parents, who have gone to Pakistan and Afghanistan to help refugees, and for Uncle Neal, whom she learns has been concealing an illness. Meanwhile, Tyler, a 15-year-old boy working at the wildlife refuge, is afraid of his violent father—just as Neal has fears about Tyler himself, who previously abused animals. Messages about the precariousness of safety and life are not subtle, but the narrative takes on no more than it can handle; animals are front and center, politics are straightforward if simple, and characters are likable. A slight awkwardness regarding race is unfortunate. Seattle-specific details ensure special fans among Seattle readers as well as among wild animal enthusiasts. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)
School Library Journal
JUV002000 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | General
Uncles
Seattle (Wash.)
Wildlife rescue
