In my reviewers group, this was a great find for upper elementary and middle school kids:
Potentially offensive items: mild violence, lying
This is the second book I’ve read by S.D. Brown, and I must admit, I was looking forward to it. I read Saving Bigfoot Valley with my fourth-grader before bed. She really got into it, was engaged and laughing, and afterward she wanted to discuss with me how she would have made better choices than some of those made by the main character, Arrth. In short, she enjoyed it immensely.
Bigfoot Valley is shielded by an advanced cloaking device. When Arrth, a “little” Bigfoot decides to save a rabbit from death at the hands of a hunter just outside the shield, he accidentally delivers one of the cloaking device repeaters into the skin-face’s hands causing the shield to destabilize. Wanting to make amends for his actions by finding and returning the device, he sneaks out of Bigfoot Valley and into the nearby skin-face town of Willow Creek (pop. 1743). Will he be able to do it before the remaining repeaters can no longer handle the load and shut down or will Bigfoot Valley have to be abandoned so the skin-faces don’t hunt all the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) to extinction?
Many coming-of-age books focus on falling in love, but that is only one aspect of growing up. Here, the focus is on body changes, awkward clumsiness, and taking responsibility for your actions. There are a few schoolgirl crushes, but the story never becomes a romance, making it appropriate for older elementary and middle schoolers. It did have some typos, but it was so cute and appealing that it was easy to skip over them.
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