Remote Man by Elizabeth Honey, Elizabeth Honey (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

A supercharged, international, Internet adventure.

Ned is a wizard with a computer. The king of the remote control. He adores snakes, lizards, and skinks, but people are less appealing. Less reliable. Ned is . . . Remote Man. What will it take to peel away his protective layer of indifference? How about a mother on the edge? A wild cousin from the Northern Territory? A sudden extended trip to the States? A goofy new neighbor? Nope, it’ll take a snake. Or two–one an endangered Australian python, and the other a smuggler who sells wild animals to the highest bidder. When Ned discovers what this animal poacher is doing, his anger forces him into action. Now Remote Man is more like a superhero or super sleuth–tracking down clues and enlisting the help of some Web-wise teens. Can five kids on four continents linked only by the Internet manage to foil a very real-world criminal? You bet your Oenpelli python they can.


From the Hardcover edition.

Jennifer Bromann - VOYA

Thirteen-year-old Ned travels from Australia to America with his mother so that she can recover from depression. Ned's Australian cousin Katie discovers that some rare snakes are missing after Ned tells a curious man where they were located. Ned and his neighbor, Rocky, become involved in a search for the poacher, who has taken unusual and endangered animals from all parts of the world to sell for profit. Via the Internet, the three teenagers soon meet Ja from Jamaica and Salamander from France, who live near places where the smuggler is active and who are willing to launch their own adventures to find clues and save the animals. Readers might be confused by the many characters involved and directions that this book takes. Too much is going on, and there are too many story lines to keep track of why things happen and how they connect. It is hard to imagine thirteen-year-olds taking off alone to solve all these mysteries, breaking into a house with no consequences, and convincing an adult to go on a high-speed chase that results in a death while showing little remorse. Nevertheless, young readers will find the adventure, illustrations, and e-mail conversations intriguing. They especially will be inspired by the use of the computer to communicate and solve problems. Teachers and librarians will appreciate that the story is about saving the environment, a topic hard to come by. For other environmental adventures, try Green Thumb by Rob Thomas (Simon & Schuster, 1999/VOYA August 1999) and The Monkey Thief by Aileen Henderson (Milkweed Editions, 1997). Teachers might find this book useful as an introduction to the possibilities of using the Internet for research. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P M (Readablewithout serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2002, Knopf, 256p,

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-From the Australian Outback to Concord, MA, this novel covers a lot of territory. Ned, 13, thinks of himself as Remote Man, partly because he loves to flip through channels with the remote control, and partly because he is a bit of an outsider. When his mother has a nervous breakdown, he is sent to his aunt and uncle's house, where he forms a bond with his cousin, Kate, and his fascination with reptiles sets the stage for his involvement in trying to ensnare a ring of international wildlife poachers. Ned and his mother visit Concord while she recuperates, a move that proves to be fortuitous when the poachers leave a trail that starts in his own backyard and leads to an apartment near the Museum of Natural History in New York City. It is through Ned's technological prowess and his growing network of young sympathetic supporters in Jamaica, France, Australia, and his new neighborhood that the poachers are brought down. E-mail communications, lurking in chat rooms, and creating phony corporate Web pages all contribute to the fast-paced action, and virtual reality and actual reality finally meet in a nail-biting car chase. The characters are lovingly portrayed in this most enjoyable read. Kids will love the techno-action and recognize the foibles and triumphs of both the young people and adults. Readers will want to hear more from these characters who have come to be so alive and important.-Elizabeth Fernandez, Brunswick Middle School, Greenwich, CT Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

One of the no-less-than-50 chapter heads could do for all here: "E-Mail and the Detectives" describes this intercontinental romp, featuring five young correspondents on the trail of a drug and wild animal smuggler, to a tee. The disappearance of a rare Oenpelli python from its accustomed rocks sends Australian cousins Ned, known online as "Remote Man," and Kate ("Kuza") searching for a fly-by-night visitor, ugly American ex-stuntman Frank Laana. The hunt heats up when Ned travels with his mother halfway around the world to Massachusetts, where he hooks up physically with Rocky ("Rocky"), and makes chat room connections with Cleverton ("Ja") in Jamaica and Yvette ("Salamandre") in France. Rapidly exchanging information and ideas while, for "Kusa" at least, throwing spelling to the winds-"DEFINATELY! We are going to catch this SKnuk!"-the five concoct an elaborate sting that culminates in a melodramatic car chase and a fiery end for the brutal nogoodnik. Fans of Van Draanen's nonstop Sammy Keyes adventures will dive into this page-turner with gusto, and though Honey (Fiddleback, 2001, etc.) creates cardboard villains and injects way too many coincidences to make the tale particularly plausible, her live-wire young sleuths more than compensate with their energy and individual voices. (Fiction. 11-13)

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