Reviews

Running Scared: A Mystery in Carlsbad Caverns National Park by Gloria Skurzynski, Alane Ferguson

worms_and_words's review against another edition

5.0

Sam was one of my favorite characters that has come to live with the Landon’s. Love this one.

aconfundityofcrows's review against another edition

4.0

The two Landon children and their current foster sibling Sam get lost in the caves of Left-hand Tunnel at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The main conflict concerned the children trying to find their way out of the cave and some of the perils they faced on the way. The "bad guys" of this book weren't the focus of the story except they did serve as a link to the resolutions to the main plot and the subplot, Dr.Landon is in Carlsbad to study the decrease in the Mexican free-tailed bat population. The idea of being stuck in a cave for several hours off of the main trail with no idea how or when you will find a way out is scary to me even reading through the main character Jack's perspective. I like how the A and B plots connected and it served as a reasonable explanation for how they got out of the cave and rounded out the character of one of the bad guys. The back story of the character Sam was heartbreaking, but I liked how he was able to start overcoming his fears by the end. If I continued reading more of this series I think I would find many of the Landon families' foster children's back stories to be sad. For the mystery being "We need to get out of this cave!" aka not really a mystery, I liked it more than the "Omg, we are being attacked by a bear!" plot in The Hunted (It was pretty crazy though I can't believe they didn't get in trouble for all of that).
This is also a National Park I’ve been to before although my memory is a little fuzzy since I was six when I went. All I remember is the amphitheater outside, the stairway in the natural entrance, some of the cave, and a little of the gift shop. I want to go back now.