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Jake explores his super-smart, sneaky Jackal side in the final installment of this high-octane, page-turning series!
After all the excitement and danger he and his friends survived in California, Jake just wants to chill out and ride his bike. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse—the chance to train and race with his friends in China, where a committee is building a world-class cycling team. But he soon finds out that trouble can follow him even all the way to China. When an old enemy chases him through Shanghai and the Chinese countryside, Jake may miss out on his chance to lead his team to victory.
In the last book of the Five Ancestors Out of the Ashes series, Jeff Stone delivers an action-packed adventure perfect for bike racing fans, readers of the popular Five Ancestors series, and anyone who loves a fast-paced page-turner.
After all the excitement and danger he and his friends survived in California, Jake just wants to chill out and ride his bike. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse—the chance to train and race with his friends in China, where a committee is building a world-class cycling team. But he soon finds out that trouble can follow him even all the way to China. When an old enemy chases him through Shanghai and the Chinese countryside, Jake may miss out on his chance to lead his team to victory.
In the last book of the Five Ancestors Out of the Ashes series, Jeff Stone delivers an action-packed adventure perfect for bike racing fans, readers of the popular Five Ancestors series, and anyone who loves a fast-paced page-turner.
- GenresFantasy
192 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2014
About the author
Jeff Stone
106 books160 followersJEFF STONE is the bestselling author of the International Reading Association (IRA) and American Library Association (ALA) award-winning, middle-grade, kung fu action/adventure series, THE FIVE ANCESTORS, and its follow-up trilogy, THE FIVE ANCESTORS: OUT OF THE ASHES. Published by Penguin Random House, there are 10 novels in total with nearly 700K copies sold in 14 languages. Audio versions by Listening Library/Penguin Random House Audio. Film rights previously optioned by Nickelodeon and Likely Story.
A veteran writing coach and former college writing instructor with 30+ years experience, Jeff has facilitated more than 150 writing workshops at universities, educator conferences, and K-12 schools on three continents.
Like his main characters, Jeff was an orphan. Unlike them, he was adopted into the very best family imaginable. He spent 15 years searching for his birthmother before finding her. He found his birthfather a year later.
A Detroit native, Jeff is the proud father of an adult daughter and adult son. His former wife is from Hong Kong, where they had a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony in the mid-90’s. His immersion in Chinese culture and shared ethnic experiences with their children informs his writing, as does his training in animal-style kung fu.
In 2005, Jeff traveled to Shaolin Temple in China with ambassadors from the Shaolin-Do Association and was given the HUGE honor of testing for his black belt in Shaolin-Do Kung Fu at Shaolin Temple. His highly interactive, kung fu storytelling school and library presentations are unforgettable.
A veteran writing coach and former college writing instructor with 30+ years experience, Jeff has facilitated more than 150 writing workshops at universities, educator conferences, and K-12 schools on three continents.
Like his main characters, Jeff was an orphan. Unlike them, he was adopted into the very best family imaginable. He spent 15 years searching for his birthmother before finding her. He found his birthfather a year later.
A Detroit native, Jeff is the proud father of an adult daughter and adult son. His former wife is from Hong Kong, where they had a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony in the mid-90’s. His immersion in Chinese culture and shared ethnic experiences with their children informs his writing, as does his training in animal-style kung fu.
In 2005, Jeff traveled to Shaolin Temple in China with ambassadors from the Shaolin-Do Association and was given the HUGE honor of testing for his black belt in Shaolin-Do Kung Fu at Shaolin Temple. His highly interactive, kung fu storytelling school and library presentations are unforgettable.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 31, 2015
Um, I wrote it. :-)
March 24, 2018
Good action and plot but too much violence (killing) for my taste in a teen book.
February 1, 2017
Have you ever seen those books that you start reading and you just keep reading more and more and you just get atatched to it? Well this is that type of book! This book has 4 characters named Ryan,Jake,phonix and Ryan´s cousin named Peter. They all love bikes and racing with them and they always are down for a bike race and they are going into a bike race and there are 20 other bikers and they all are hoping to when but before that they were on a gurny to Calaforina which is were they are at, but as they were heading twords Calafornia they were riding a train, while they were on the train they would every now and then look out of the window and just look at the rode and think about winning the race. So when the train finaily made it to Calafornia they were so excited to go the bike race and when they rode there bikes over to the bike race place thing they saw that all of the people were getting ready to race and so they thought that they were late for the race, but it was just the BMX people doing there trickes for there compation and they were so excited that they werent late and so they jsut went over to the benches and put there bikes on there bike stands and sat down and enjoyed the BMX people doing there tricks. When Ryan was watching the BMX people doing there thing they rembered that before they thought of doing Just normal bike racing that they were thinking about doing BMX tricks besides NORMAL bike races!<-------------------(FACT) When the BMX people finished up there thing that they were doing Ryan,Jake ,Phonix and Ryan´s cousin Peter they all got up and saw a hudge mountain and they relise that this time the race was really starting and they had to rush over to they Staring line and get ready to race so when they got up to the to the mountiain they were so scared because it was not so safe there were so many bunbs in the rode or trail so when they got up twords the top OWWW! RYAN fell off of his bike and slid down the mountain and he was hurt so bad but if you wanna finish what happen you will have to read the book! --Jonathon Villegas
March 4, 2016
I really WANTED to like this series. I enjoyed the first series a lot. However, this did not live up to the original set of books. The writing was less impressive, the dialogue was often strange and forced. I don't know if writing about kids in ancient China allowed him the cognitive distance to write them like people, but I work with kids around this age and sometimes I found myself frustrated with some of the dialogue, "Extensions, yo!"
There were some serious hang ups in the plot. Minor spoiler alert. Three men in a van follow the kids into the woods, call them good looking, then invite them to come back to China with them. The main character's parents then encourage him to go, alone, without ever having met these Chinese businessmen. !!?!
Also unfortunate, it took until this, the third book, before the stuff about bike riding stopped feeling forced. I was barraged with biking trivia from the mundane to the obnoxiously pointless. I appreciate that Jeff Stone is an adult and a parent, and the safety undertones (read overtones) weren't so much unwelcome as they were... Unbelievable. I know bike racing can be dangerous, especially in the professional tournaments, but I would have laughed off most of this as a kid. Every time someone wipes out we're supposed to think they could very well be dead. I've fallen off my bike more than a few times, and am still alive. This probably would have come off less silly if he'd reminded us of the speeds they're moving at.
It's a shame, but I actually liked the last quarter or so of this book much better than anything since the previous series. I was pretty worried about the chunk I was going to go through to finish, but it was pleasurable after the grueling first half of this short book. I hope to see more writing like the high points in the next book he publishes.
There were some serious hang ups in the plot. Minor spoiler alert. Three men in a van follow the kids into the woods, call them good looking, then invite them to come back to China with them. The main character's parents then encourage him to go, alone, without ever having met these Chinese businessmen. !!?!
Also unfortunate, it took until this, the third book, before the stuff about bike riding stopped feeling forced. I was barraged with biking trivia from the mundane to the obnoxiously pointless. I appreciate that Jeff Stone is an adult and a parent, and the safety undertones (read overtones) weren't so much unwelcome as they were... Unbelievable. I know bike racing can be dangerous, especially in the professional tournaments, but I would have laughed off most of this as a kid. Every time someone wipes out we're supposed to think they could very well be dead. I've fallen off my bike more than a few times, and am still alive. This probably would have come off less silly if he'd reminded us of the speeds they're moving at.
It's a shame, but I actually liked the last quarter or so of this book much better than anything since the previous series. I was pretty worried about the chunk I was going to go through to finish, but it was pleasurable after the grueling first half of this short book. I hope to see more writing like the high points in the next book he publishes.
January 28, 2015
Jake was happy to win the road bike race in California, but the win has come with complications: an offer to race again in China. Jake would much prefer the rest of his summer vacation to actually be, well, a vacation. Relaxing. But complications within their team eventually lead him overseas, and soon more than the race is at stake . . .
For being the only one of the four without any kung-fu training, Jake is also ironically the one who ends up killing people. It's an amusing turn of events. He's also the only one of the four without a vested interest in actually training all day, and for that I found him a lot more relatable. It's certainly admirable that Phoenix and Ryan want to practice all day, but Jake's desire to veg out and play games is more in line with most of us, I think.
Once again, a new facet of biking takes center stage. Jake's passion is BMX. The technical terms do show up, but the story doesn't get overwhelmed in them. It's far too busy pitting Jake against the accumulated rage and rivalry of some old enemies the previous books left alone, as well as tying up the loose ends about the Five Ancestors and Cangzhen Temple. Because of all the action, the story flies.
It's a satisfying conclusion to a solid series. Although not in the same vein exactly as the original Five Ancestors series, I think that was a good thing. It allowed this series to become its own story, not just something that would rely on the original seven books. I rate this book Recommended.
For being the only one of the four without any kung-fu training, Jake is also ironically the one who ends up killing people. It's an amusing turn of events. He's also the only one of the four without a vested interest in actually training all day, and for that I found him a lot more relatable. It's certainly admirable that Phoenix and Ryan want to practice all day, but Jake's desire to veg out and play games is more in line with most of us, I think.
Once again, a new facet of biking takes center stage. Jake's passion is BMX. The technical terms do show up, but the story doesn't get overwhelmed in them. It's far too busy pitting Jake against the accumulated rage and rivalry of some old enemies the previous books left alone, as well as tying up the loose ends about the Five Ancestors and Cangzhen Temple. Because of all the action, the story flies.
It's a satisfying conclusion to a solid series. Although not in the same vein exactly as the original Five Ancestors series, I think that was a good thing. It allowed this series to become its own story, not just something that would rely on the original seven books. I rate this book Recommended.
April 3, 2015
Jackal is another book in Jeff Stone’s amazing series (Out of the Ashes). After all the exhilaration and danger Jake and his friends were faced in California, Jake just wants to chill and ride his bike with his friends. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse, the chance to train and compete with his friends in China, where a committee is building a world-class team. When an old enemy chases him through Shanghai and the Chinese countryside, Jake may miss out on the opportunity to ride with his friends. I really liked this book because of the way Jeff Stone describes what Jake is feeling in his road bike races. It lets me picture what is happening and also lets me know what it feels like to be in a road bike race.
June 8, 2016
BMX is awesome
December 2, 2016
Spectacular
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews