EXTINCTION WARRIOR

Heart-stopping adventures unfold for 12-year-old Luki Sloan, a clairvoyant animal communicator, her pet arctic fox, Mig and Tuk, an android when they set out to find the world's most notorious animal trafficker, White Wolf, leader of the Red Dragon gang.

Set in the year 2155, this inspiring fantasy sheds light on the perils of climate change and the extinction crisis while shining a hopeful light on a seemingly insurmountable situation.

As scientist-detectives for World Endangered Animal Police Protection (WEAPP), Luki's parents go missing while hunting White Wolf and his gang in the Bering Strait. Once Luki activates Tuk, he convinces her that there is only one thing to do-masquerade as traffickers to try to find White Wolf and her parents. She must lie to her adoptive Indigenous grandparents and sets off from her remote home with Tuk and Mig to travel the world, collecting a diverse assortment of endangered animals to entice the Red Dragon leader. They eventually locate White Wolf and gain access to his superyacht where disaster strikes.

Their travels take them from a cyclone in Tahiti into the aftermath of a hurricane in Puerto Rico. They face an Eagle owl attack in Russia, a porcupine attack in the Transylvanian Alps, the stinging bites of driver ants in the Serengeti, and the possibility of pirates in the Mozambique Channel before they make their way to White Wolf's superyacht in the Bay of Bengal near Myanmar- where they confront a series of shocking discoveries.

As the story unfolds, readers learn about Partula snails, Puerto Rican crested toads, cinereous vultures, African wild dogs, radiated tortoises, pangolins, tarsiers and a variety of other animals while gaining insight into indigenous Arctic culture, diverse environments and acquire a greater understanding of world geography from maps throughout the text.

An excellent choice for children ages nine to fifteen, this story weaves real science with a fantastic vision of a future world in which a 12-year-old wrestles with friendship, loneliness, fear, loss, and her own strengths.