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What do you do if you're buried in an avalanche? *

Roxie Warbler knows what to do in all kinds of situations. And she's learned it all from her favorite book: Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them . But there's one situation Roxie doesn't know how to handle and that's dealing with Helvetia's Hooligans, the meanest band of bullies in school.

Then Roxie and the hooligans are stranded together on a desert island, the hideout of a couple of criminals on the lam. Can five kids, armed with only a load of survival tactics and a little bit of teamwork, vanquish the villains and find their way home?

* Do not panic. Dig a hole around yourself and spit. The saliva will fall downward, telling you which direction is up.

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Chapter One: Uncle Dangerfoot When Uncle Dangerfoot came to visit, everything in the house had to be just so. The footstool was arranged in its place, the tea piping hot, the crumpets and jam on a platter, and Roxie Warbler watched for him at the door. The man who had wrestled alligators and jumped from planes was not to be kept waiting. "And there he is!" cried Mrs. Warbler as her brother stepped handsomely out of a cab and came briskly up the walk. He wore a jungle helmet, a tan safari jacket with brass buttons, and he carried a long slender cane, which could, in an instant, become a harpoon, a gun, an umbrella, or a walking stick, depending on the circumstances and the weather. Nine-year-old Roxie looked forward to his visits, for he had traveled all over the world with Lord Thistlebottom from London. And Thistlebottom was famous for his book, Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them. "Hello, Uncle Dangerfoot!" Roxie called, throwing open the door as he came up the steps. The man with the handlebar mustache smiled down at his niece and tapped her fondly on the head with his walking stick. And that was about all the attention Roxie would get from her uncle, for although she had put on her best blue dress and her patent-leather shoes and she had brushed her hair till her scalp tingled, Uncle Dangerfoot was not a man of emotion and never hugged anyone if he could help it. "Come in! Come in!" said Roxie's father, shaking Uncle Dangerfoot's hand and ushering him to the big easy chair with the footstool at the ready. "We are so glad to have you." "So eager to hear about your latest adventure!" said Roxie's mother. Roxie just stood to one side beaming, holding the platter of crumpets until her uncle noticed and helped himself. Then she sat down on the floor at his feet, waiting to leap to attention should he need some extra cream for his tea or a second lump of sugar. "Oh, it was harrowing, let me tell you!" said Uncle Dangerfoot, taking a small sip of tea, then biting into his crumpet and jam. "It was uncharted territory in Australia, and our canteens had long since run dry...." Roxie hung on every word, even though her uncle's stories tended to go on all evening. The crumpets and tea would be gone, and her uncle would still be talking. The flames in the fireplace would have died down and gone out, and he would still be talking. Sometimes Roxie was embarrassed by drifting off to sleep in spite of herself, and her father would carry her upstairs and tuck her in bed. But parts of her uncle's stories always lingered in her head: "...So there we were, our lips parched, our mouths full of dust, our throats so dry we could scarcely speak. 'Do not panic!' Lord Thistlebottom said to me as we followed the dry streambed. 'Look for a sharp bend in the bed and keep an eye out for wet sand.' I, of course, having the sharper eye, spied it shortly, and there we dug down, down, down until we found seeping water...." "I'm thirsty," Roxie murmured, her own lips feeling parched, her throat dry. She opened her eyes to find that, once again, she was back in her bed, a glass of water on the night table, the first faint glow of morning coming through her window shade, and Uncle Dangerfoot, of course, gone. She drank a little of the water and pulled the covers up under her chin. If only she could be as brave as her uncle. What a disappointment she must be! Not only did she sometimes fall asleep during his visits, but while he was afraid of nothing, Roxie Warbler was afraid of a lot of things: thunder, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and, most of all, Public School Number Thirty-Seven, where Helvetia's Hooligans seemed to have chosen Roxie to be their Victim of the Year. It was her ears, of course. They were round ears, pink ears, ears of the normal variety, and Roxie scrubbed them daily inside and behind. But they stuck straight out from her head like the handles on a sugar bowl, the ears on an elephant, the wings on a bat. And though Roxie Warbler was neither fat nor thin, short nor tall, pretty nor plain, smart nor stupid -- a perfectly average child in the fourth grade at Public School Number Thirty-Seven -- her ears were the first thing anyone noticed when they looked at her and the only thing they seemed to remember. From that first day of school a month ago, when Roxie started up the walk to the building, Helvetia Hagus had watched her come, and her eyes narrowed. So did the eyes of her little band of hooligans: Simon Surly, Freddy Filch, and the smallest, leanest, meanest hooligan of them all -- a wiry little hornet of a girl called Smoky Jo. When Roxie had got up close to them, it was Smoky Jo who squealed, "Why, Grandma, what big ears you have!" and the other hooligans laughed and hooted. Helvetia brayed like a donkey: "Hee -yah, hee -yah!" Simon howled like a hyena: "Hoo-hoo ha-ha, hoo-hoo ha-ha!" Freddy cawed like a crow: "Ca- haw! Ca- haw!" And Smoky Jo squeaked like a mouse: "Eeeka. Eeeka. Eeeka." Together, their braying and howling and cawing and squeaking sounded to Roxie like feeding time at the circus -- and trouble for Roxie Warbler. Roxie had tried her best to smile and be friendly, but that only made the teasing worse. "I think we ought to tape those ears to the sides of her head where they belong," said Helvetia Hagus, a large-boned girl with a square face and a square frame who wore her kneesocks rolled down around her ankles. "I think we ought to find something to hang on those ears," said Simon Surly, who was as tall and skinny as a broom. When he was feeling nasty, his lips curled down on the left side and up on the right. "I think we ought to find something to pour in those ears," said Freddy Filch, a round, red-faced boy who wheezed when he talked. Smoky Jo had eyes that positively gleamed, and her short hair circled her head like a barbed-wire fence. "I think we should hang her up by the ears!" she squealed, and they brayed and howled and cawed and squeaked some more. Every day it happened again, only each day the hooligans crowded a little closer around Roxie. It did not happen in the classroom, where the teacher, Miss Crumbly, could see. And Roxie did not want to bother her parents about it, for how could the niece of the man who braved sandstorms and avalanches tell her parents that she was afraid of a small band of hooligans on the playground? She had almost memorized Lord Thistlebottom's book by heart. Every bit of advice was followed by the admonition Do not panic. Roxie knew that if she were ever lost in the desert, she should try to sit at least twelve inches off the ground, because the ground could be thirty degrees hotter than the air. Do not panic. She knew that if you are jumping from a plane and your parachute does not open, head for water if you can. Do not panic. Roxie knew that if she found herself on top of a moving train, she should not try to stand up. Do not panic. But she did not know what to do about Helvetia's Hooligans, who had chosen Roxie Warbler to tease and torment and otherwise make miserable for every day of her life in Public School Number Thirty-Seven. Text copyright (c) 2006 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Excerpted from Roxie and the Hooligans by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Starred Review. As Naylor's (Shiloh) sprightly caper opens, Roxie Warbler and her parents receive a prestigious visitor: her Uncle Dangerfoot. The man has traveled the world with the renowned adventurer and author of Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them. Nine-year-old Roxie has almost memorized its contents, which describe perilous scenarios and (after repeating the admonition, "Do not panic!") provide helpful survival tips. The heroine wishes she could be as brave as Lord Thistlebottom; the thing that frightens her most: Public School #37, "where Helvetia's Hooligans seemed to have chosen Roxie to be their Victim of the Year." Those four classmates tease Roxie mercilessly about her oversize ears. One day, as she tries to dodge the gravel they are throwing at her ("Do not panic, she remembered. To avoid gunfire, run in a zigzag line"), Roxie tumbles into a dumpster--as do the bullies. The story takes a wacky turn when the dumpster winds up on a flatbed truck, which unloads its contents onto a barge that dumps the refuse--and the kids--mid-ocean. By repeatedly recalling Thistlebottom's wryly stated counsel, putting her ears to good use, and never panicking, Roxie ensures a dramatic rescue. Boiger's (While Mama Had a Quick Little Chat) humorous caricatures of the bad guys, combined with Naylor's snappy writing, tongue-in-cheek humor and resourceful, endearingly earnest heroine will keep readers highly entertained. Ages 7-10. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 2-4-In this beginning chapter book, nine-year-old Roxie Warbler knows just what to do if she finds herself buried in an avalanche, but she doesn't know what to do about Helvetia's Hooligans. The gang at Public School Number Thirty-Seven has chosen her to be Victim of the Year, thanks to her ears, which stick straight out. The Hooligans chase Roxie into the Dumpster, fall into it themselves, and everyone is soon spilled onto a barge being pulled out to sea. The children end up stranded on an island with a couple of nasty thieves. With only the survival tips Roxie remembers from Uncle Dangerfoot's stories of his fantastical adventures with famous thrill-seeker and author Lord Thistlebottom to help her, Roxie finds herself leading the four hungry, thirsty, and scared bullies to safety. Full-page pencil illustrations perfectly complement this clever story that will leave readers cheering for Roxie as she proves to be as successful an adventurer as her famous uncle.-Kristine M. Casper, Huntington Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 3-5. Nine-year-old Roxie Warbler wishes she were brave like Uncle Dangerfoot and his adventurous colleague, Lord Thistlebottom, whose book, Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them0 , she has practically memorized. Instead, she is afraid of many things, especially Helvetia's Hooligans, school bullies who harass her. After a playground confrontation spills over into fantasy and the kids find themselves on a deserted island facing hunger, thirst, and robbers on the lam, Roxie creatively applies Lord Thistlebottom's advice to help her survive, increase her confidence, and change the Hooligans from foes to friends. Part adventure, part comedy, part sympathetic portrayal of coping with bullying, Naylor's latest, written in droll, slightly formal prose, mixes fantasy, absurdity, and reality in a way that never diminishes or overwhelms the story's heart. Boiger's black-and-white illustrations catch the energy of Naylor's over-the-top yet sympathetically portrayed characters. --Shelle Rosenfeld Copyright 2006 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written more than 135 books, including the Newbery Award-winning Shiloh and its sequels, three of which were made into movies; the Alice series; Roxie and the Hooligans ; and Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost . She lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. To hear from Phyllis and find out more about Alice, visit AliceMcKinley.com.

Alexandra Boiger is the illustrator of numerous children's books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and The Little Bit Scary People by Emily Jenkins. Ms. Boiger lives in Northern California with her husband and daughter. Visit her at AlexandraBoiger.com.