Inkweaver Review

“Climb or Die,” by Edward Myers is an action packed story about two teens who must climb a mountain despite their lack of real climbing equipment.

The Darcy family is on their way to their winter cabin in the Colorado mountains when an early snowstorm makes driving conditions dangerous. Rather than turning around Jake’s Dad decides to take a shortcut that will get them to the cabin faster. Twenty miles from the interstate, however, the car slides off the road and crashes into a tree.

Jake and his sister Danielle are unharmed, but both of their parents are injured. Although the car starts up, there is no way that they can get back on the road because the car is bogged down in snow and resting at the bottom of a steep hill leading back up to the road. The family knows that if they just sit in the car where the heater is keeping it warm they will eventually run out of gas and freeze to death.

It is too far to walk back to the interstate through the snow, but at the top of nearby Mount Remington there is a manned weather station from which help can be summoned. Jake and Danielle decide to climb to the top of Mount Remington using the materials and tools available in their vehicle.

Myers story is both exciting and also realistic. The book actually says that Myers tested all the techniques that the children use in the story. The result is that this otherwise unusual plot is injected with a sense of realism and possibility.

I would recommend “Climb or Die” to anyone who enjoys books full of exciting action and suspense, or who just enjoys books about mountain climbing.

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