Chrissy’s Review: The Ghosts of Petroglyph Canyon by Christopher Cloud

The Ghosts of Petroglyph Canyon
written by Christopher Cloud
published by Christopher Cloud

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: I read Mr. Cloud’s A Boy Called Duct Tape and absolutely loved it! (See my review here.) And when I found out he wrote another story about Pablo, Kiki, and Pia, I couldn’t wait to read it. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I had hoped I would.

The story was interesting, but too unbelievable. I get that it’s an adventure, and the kids are the heroes. But, I found so many of the scenarios hard to believe. I can’t imagine that three young kids (13, 12, and 9) would be allowed to horseback ride around their uncle’s ranch, unaccompanied. The Bar-7 ranch is so big that his uncle’s ranch hand can hardly inspect the perimeter and make fence repairs in one summer. Yet, these three kids who, presumably, have never been there are allowed to roam free. AND there are thieves who are trespassing on the ranch lands and stealing priceless petroglyphs. Not only that, but these kids are the ones that confront and try to stop them. About a hundred pages in, I was ready to call it a day and DNF this book. Why? Because they had a 13-year-old explain what D.B.A. meant. I don’t know that many kids who understand that concept as well as she did. There was just too much that these kids understood and took on by themselves. It wasn’t a realistic adventure.

However, the adventure did keep me reading. I wanted to see how this story would play out.

Would I recommend it: Sadly, I wouldn’t. I would definitely recommend A Boy Called Duct Tape but not this one.

About the book – from Goodreads: School is out for the summer and Pablo Perez, his sister, Pia, and their cousin, Kiki Flores, visit the Bar-7 ranch in New Mexico. The young Missourians have come to help their Uncle Antonio with the annual cattle roundup.

Uncle Antonio introduces his nephew and nieces to hundreds of primitive petroglyphs that have been chiseled into the walls of a nearby canyon—Petroglyph Canyon. The primitive rock drawings are part of Uncle Antonio’s sprawling cattle ranch. Sadly, looters are routinely excavating the ancient drawings with high-tech rock saws. Uncle Antonio believes the looters are selling the glyphs.

Pablo, Pia, and Kiki are determined to put a stop to the looting, and that’s when the adventure begins.