Book review: 'Explorer Academy: The Tiger's Nest' is a unique and captivating way to learn about biology

Book five of Explorer Academy finally arrived at our house and my teenage son couldn't have been happier. While so many other authors are spending time writing complete fiction (which is fine, don't get me wrong), I so so so appreciate those who combine actual science with fiction and Trudi Trueit has done just that in this series in Explorer Academy: The Tiger's Nest.

Readers continue to follow Cruz Coronado at his amazing school. He and his fellow classmates are still learning and participating in some unique field trips. But Cruz is also very focused on finding the rest of the ciphers to break the slew of clues his mother left him and figure out the mystery of her disappearance and her research.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the trip to the Taj Mahal. Secret passages, dastardly agents, and near misses made this part of the book quite impressive.

The Tiger's Nest deals with relationships with friends, having a crush, death, and trust. Of course, there's a lot of biology thrown in and it's written in a fascinating way. I appreciated the codes readers try to figure out in the book and the color illustrations are masterful. As opposed to book 4 of Explorer Academy, I appreciated that this book had a few more strong male characters, and they weren't all bad guys, either! As always, there is a whole slew of strong female characters in this book series.

Middle grade readers will likely enjoy reading about Cruz's special set of explorer clothing, his robotic bug, and that he can steer a boat. Meanwhile, the bad guys are getting even more real and there's a sad death towards the end of the book.

The Tiger's Nest is a book with clean language and romance that doesn't go beyond a light kiss and a crush. This book does integrate a lot of biology in it, but because it is mainly fiction, the science inserted isn't nearly as deep or broad as a non-fiction. Still, this book is unique in its field.

 

Book Breakdown:

215 pages with several full-color illustrations

Best for ages: 10-14

Educational factor: Medium

Moral content: This book has characters that lie; it also deals with biology and climate. Religion isn't spoken of. I don't have any hesitations letting my children read this series.