Monday, August 2, 2021

Middle Grade Monday and Audiobook Review: Bear Bottom by Stuart Gibbs

Bear Bottom by Stuart Gibbs. FunJungle #7. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~7 hours, 12 minutes. Read by Gibson Frazier. Simon & Schuster Audio, May, 2021. 9781797123608. (Review of e-audio borrowed from public library.)

Happy Monday readers! I apologize for skipping Fact Friday last week. I read an amazing informational book that I can't wait to share, but just couldn't settle down to write the review it deserved. The events of the last eight-plus weeks have been a challenge to my concentration. 

Middle Grade Monday features Bear Bottom by TMS favorite, Stuart Gibbs. Theodore Roosevelt Fitzroy is back in the seventh installment of the FunJungle series. Teddy, his parents and some FunJungle employees traveled to Yellowstone with JJ McCracken and his family. They are staying at a bison ranch just outside Yellowstone National Park. JJ is friends with the owner and is thinking about buying the place. Several bison have gone missing recently, and JJ asks Teddy if he'd put his detective skills to work in order to get to the bottom of the mystery. 

As soon as Teddy starts, his investigation becomes a double investigation after Sasquatch, an enormous grizzly bear invades the ranch house and a rare and valuable necklace goes missing. Did the bear inadvertently eat the necklace while foraging for food? If so, someone needs to track Sasquatch and wait for nature to take its course.

Any new book by Stuart Gibbs is an auto-purchase for me. I don't even need to read them in order to book talk them. All I need to do is tell my students that there's a new Gibbs book in the library and it's checked out immediately with a wait list for the year. This is the reason why I didn't get to read Spy School for ages and ages. Mr. Gibbs always keeps his plots moving in unexpected, often hilarious ways. Woven into all the lighthearted fun are messages, usually about the environment.

This is the first FunJungle book that I read with my ears and I think I will read future installments with my eyes. The narrator was adequate, but didn't sound appropriately youthful to me and his female voices grated, especially Candace McCracken's. 

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