Name: The Climb
ISBN: 9780439405065

Gordon Korman

As Tilt, Dominic, Sammi, and Perry ready themselves to ascend Everest, they must deal with altitude sickness, an unknown person's messages to the tabloids about their expedition, and a troubled rescue attempt.

The Climb

jess

We're done Book Two of the reread, and it has me screaming, "How did these kids survive this?? How does anyone survive this!!" Mount Everest is brutal, and Gordon Korman captures all of it startlingly well. We start in Kathmandu and over the course of the book, the characters make it up to Camp Four, acclimatizing to the high altitudes and the conditions on Everest: falling ice, blowing wind and snow, baking heat. I've been looking up photos and skimming Jon Krakauer's account of the 1996 Everest diaster while reading this and I remain amazed at how people survive this mountain and how well Korman describes it. 

There is, honestly, a lot going on in this book for how short it is. All the kids are fit into surprisingly well-developed boxes: there's Sammi Moon, fifteen years old, a daredevil and the only girl on the team. Tilt Crowley, an aggressive bully with the need to summit so he can get into a good college. Perry Noonan, the son of the CEO funding the company and utterly terrified of the mountain. And Dominic Alexis, thirteen and small, but a gifted climber who should not be underestimated. They all recieve a good amount of page time that show why they want to climb Everest and what's stopping them from getting to the top. 

Also, this book was written in 2002. Internet by satellite phone. Have not heard that in a while. Next book is where Things Go Bad.