"Boys and girls (9-15 years) join Jeff, Mindy, and K.J. on their international adventures as the Reel Kids media club travels around the world. Each well-researched, exciting story is set in a different country, so children not only experience a page-turning adventure but also learn about the people, culture, or history of the nation in which the story takes place. A meaningful series of missionary challenge for young readers who enjoy action A perilous trip into the jungles of Brazil finds the Reel kids in a struggle with a greedy landowner.
This far-fetched work of religious proselytizing is thinly disguised as a not-very-compelling adventure novel for kids and teens. I was initially interested in the idea of a small group of teenagers and their teacher traveling to the Amazon rainforest to work with a doctor and missionary who lives with a remote tribe. But the book is not well written, the adventure scenes lack suspense, the characters are cardboard, and the author insists on having them constantly push their religion on the non-Christian characters and on the reader.
The teens, their teacher, and the doctor keep paying lip service to how much they love and respect the native people, but they never question whether they have any right to place their own beliefs above the local ones -- to such an extent that they actually claim the native shaman practices his own religion because he is possessed by Satan. When the shaman's ministrations do not cure a boy who is dying of a fever, the missionary, an American medical doctor, makes no effort to heal him with medicine, but instead encourages an American teenager to heal him with prayer. And it works. Instantly. The only reason I finished reading this is because it was the only book nearby.
This was a great read... very adventurous! Kids of any age would definitely enjoy it.
"The Reel Kids" are making a trip to the Amazon to film the Jarawara native tribe. Upon arrival, they find that this tribe doesn't just have dangers like alligators, snakes, or quicksand... but worse things yet. History is being made.