Adventure Awaits

Explorer Academy: The Falcon's Feather by Trudi Trueit

The impossible missions are the only ones that succeed.
Jacques Cousteau

National Geographic takes on a new publishing venture with Explorer Academy, a fiction series combining action-adventure with science, technology and world exploration. Twelve-year-old Cruz Coronado is a member of Explorer Academy, an international team of young people training to become the world's future scientists.

The Falcon’s Feather, second in the seven-book series, finds Cruz aboard the academy's flagship and headed to northern aquatic seas. He will be trained to swim in frigid waters and pilot a deep-sea exploratory vessel.

The ship is equipped with fascinating technological gadgets: a helmet with an embedded computerized translator which allows the wearer to communicate with marine animals, clothing with bio-luminescent properties and the ability to change appearance to blend with surroundings, a drone that appears as a tiny insect but can transmit messages.

Cruz faces grave personal danger. His cabin is ransacked the first day on board. He becomes wary. Whom can he trust? Twice during the voyage someone attempts to kill him. His computerized underwater helmet is sabotaged. Later, a deliberately set explosion traps Cruz and three of his companions in an ice cave. 

They killed your mother. They will not hesitate to kill you, too.

Nebula Pharmaceuticals is behind these attacks.  Cruz’s mother, a former Nebula employee, developed a serum which could regenerate human cells.  Nebula ordered her to destroy her discovery and its formula.  Prior to her death in a mysterious lab fire, she recorded a message to Cruz on her digital holo-video journal and engraved the serum's formula onto a black marble stone. She then split the stone into eight fragments and deposited them around the world. Her son has her journal which contains clues to the location of the coded marble fragments.

Trueit has created stories with action, intrigue, and suspense galore. At one point in my reading I replied to a request from an individual near me, saying “I can’t come right now. Cruz is trapped underwater and can’t breathe.” 

Those who love scientific and geographical trivia will be fascinated with all the factoids scattered throughout the narrative.  Interesting The Falcon's Feather bits include Norse mythology, whale rescue, receding glaciers, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. All volumes are chock-full of fascinating futuristic tech gadgets. There is a Jules Verne quality to the series, envisioning scientific achievements that may become a future reality.

Discover the world and examine the possibilities of science and technology with these pulse-racing high-octane escapades. Young readers will anxiously await the next volume. Fortunately, National Geographic plans to release a new title every six months. 

Extra. Extra. 

National Geographic has created a wealth of extras to enhance the series.The treasure trove of online resources includes codes and ciphers to solve, profiles of scientists working on cutting edge advances. There’s an animation video of C.A.V.E. (Computer Animated Virtual Experience), a slide show of "Weird But True" facts,  and personality quiz to determine what type of scientist you are.

The Truth Behind

​Meet the real National Geographic Explorers who helped inspire the science in the book series. Watch them in action and find out how they’re changing the world through science and adventure in “Explorer Academy: The Truth Behind.”

Watch Zoltan trap a rattlesnake, extract some blood, and then set the venomous reptile free.

Head into caves and view what might be considered the emojis of ancient civilizations.

Williams dives into frigid arctic waters to find clues to climate change.

These tiny flying drones inspired by insects have tremendous spy potential.

Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.

Pub date: March 19, 2019  Publisher: Under the Stars  ISBN:  978-1426333040