Earning My Spots

Gr 4–6-The idea that shape-shifters live among us, in forms as varied as the regions of the world from which their ancestors hail, is the basis for this adventure tale filled with farts, fights, and chase scenes and featuring a young werehyena named Sam. Sam's journey begins when his family members, who live a fairly isolated existence in the woodsy town of John's Gore, VT, are abruptly abducted by harpies. With the help of a new friend, Manny, and Manny's mom (both jaguar shape-shifters), Sam travels to New Orleans and eventually to the jungles of Brazil. Eastburn's idea is novel, but the scope of Sam's journey rushes the story and leaves the settings feeling rather flat. The characters aren't fully developed—Sam meets many personalities, often with cool shape-shifting abilities, but readers rarely get to know much about them. Sam himself has a dry narrative voice and is sometimes humorously wild (the hyena side of him dictates some unflattering behavior in the airplane bathroom), but he seems oddly unshaken by his family's sudden disappearance, not to mention the possibility that they've met an untimely end. With the tale's entire impetus resting on Sam's quest to find them, more time delving into his feelings would have been well spent.