ALA Booklist (Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2016)

Twelve-year-old Lizzie and her dad live near Yosemite National Park at the zoo he directs, the John Muir Wildlife Park. Keeping a Muir-related summer journal as a school assignment, Lizzie records her observations of the park's seven wolves. Soon she discovers Tyler, a biracial boy who has been secretly sleeping on the grounds since running away from his foster family. Initially prickly, he comes to trust his new friend. When several wolves become ill, Lizzie and Tyler team up to investigate the cause. Unexpectedly, they end up spending a couple of nights on their own in Yosemite. Part friendship story, part mystery, and part survival adventure, this engaging chapter book makes the most of its two unusual settings. Attractive drawings illustrate the text, while a two-page map offers a bird's-eye view of Yosemite Valley. Information about Muir and quotes from him are scattered throughout the book, and the appended author's note also discusses the naturalist. Fans of Broach's Superstition Mountain trilogy will want to try her latest, with its western locale and intriguing jacket illustration.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Twelve-year old Lizzie loves living at a California wildlife park (her father is head zookeeper), knowing she gets to do things that -no other kid ever got to experience.- After she meets Tyler, a foster home runaway who has been hiding out at the zoo, he tells her about what happens there at night, including a mysterious visitor to the new Wolf Woods exhibit who may be making the wolves sick. Broach-s (the Superstition Mountain series) intrepid protagonists engage in sleuthing expeditions, first to determine the cause of the wolves- illness and then to discover the location of John Muir-s lost cabin in Yosemite-moments Ratteree (Lilliput) captures in evocative pencil illustrations of human interactions with the natural world. Lizzie-s choice to follow Tyler into the wilderness (-He-d been left too often in the past, and the past was a thing you carried with you all the time, like a burr stuck to your heel-) offers just one example of the ways Broach-s characters wrestle with ethical questions throughout this gratifying, thought-provoking tale. Ages 9-14. Author-s agent: Edward Necarsulmer IV, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. Illustrator-s agent: Marietta Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Oct.)

Voice of Youth Advocates

Broach, author of the Superstition Mountain Mysteries trilogy, returns West in a new sleuthing adventure, this time to Yosemite. Lizzie, whose father is a zookeeper at a nearby tourist attraction, is without her best friend for the summer, so she takes her teacher up on the challenge to keep a nature journal like that of John Muir. The zoo has adopted a pack of wolves, and alpha wolf Lobo has become the star of Lizzie's writing. Her comfortable summer routine is upended when she catches Tyler stealing food from the tables outside the snack bar. He has run away from his latest foster family and has no intention of going back. When the wolves begin to die, the two are pulled into the mystery. They hitch a ride on a pickup taking the wolves' bodies away and find themselves alone in the wildest parts of the park, where the question of their survival is sure to keep readers turning pages.Broach's third-person limited point of view reveals the characters deftly. Both Lizzie and Tyler have secrets they keep, even from themselves. The dilemma of deciding what is best for the wolves lends thematic meat to the plot. The historical threads are authentic and clarified in an author's note that provides young readers and writers with a sense of the research that goes into a well-crafted story with real figures and historical events. Give it to readers who enjoy a good mystery or love to read about animals. They will wolf down all three hundred-plus pages.Donna L Phillips.