"The Spy Camp" by Stuart Gibbs

The book I selected is called Spy Camp is about a kid in a secret spy school that is one of the best spies and just finished 7th grade at spy school. He plans to visit family on vacations but suddenly the principal of the school tells him he needs to attend to a spy camp because he needs to practice his “camping skills”. The author of this amazing book is Stuart Gibbs, the book is in the first person narrated by the protagonist named Benjamin Ripley or Ben. At the beginning of the book, it was a bit boring because of o the lack of action in the book. but deeper in the story there’s new characters, more action, drama, and an excellent plot. The purpose of this is to tell you about my experience reading this book, give you a bit of information about what happens in the book and whether this book is good or not.

The story begins in a school campus with green trees and grass, there were buildings all around it and a big fountain with coy in it. Ben walks to his bedroom that is only for one person with a bed, a desk with a lamp on it, a cramped bathroom and a shelf next to the desk. Later in the story, Ben goes to the camp with tall big green trees that covered all the sunlight, muddy roads with brown leaves all over the humid forest floor. Some bushes with a flashing green different from the trees, and a few flowers. Deeper in the forest the cabins were there, medium size wooden cabins available for 4 persons each. The rooms had 2 bunks, a bathroom with a bathtub, sink, and toilette. and a small window in the front was that allowed few sunlight to go through. The camp knew Ben was coming and because he is the best at the school they called the best instructor in the camp, Woodchuck, to train him. Due to that Ben and 6 of his friends went to a “serious wilderness”-Woodchuck(page 103) with Woodchuck.

The main character in this story is Ben, his motivation is to be the best agent in all of the CIA. Ben is in 7th grade and has become one of the best but no the best, he is average height and he is a very athletic and smart boy that is being chased by the evil organization of SPYDER. The antagonist in this story is SPYDER a super secret organization that not even the CIA know about. Ben knows this because he has been attacked by this organization before. The motivation of SPYDER is to capture and recluse the best agents of the CIA and of the school. The most important secondary characters in this story are Alexander and Erica Hale. Erica is a 9th grader of the spy school, the best spy after Joshua (was killed by SPYDER). Alexander is her dad, Alexander is the worst agent of all the CIA but everyone thinks he is the best. He has taken all the credit from missions accomplished by Ben or Erica and he has created false stories that make him look like a complete elite CIA agent. Alexander has an ego so big that not even her own daughter (Erica) can tolerate him. SPYDER sent a letter to Ben trying to convince Ben to join SPYDER and if he rejects the offer he will be killed in the next 24 hours. Ben scared of this calls Erica for help and she decides to protect Ben at all cost. So Erica goes with Ben to spy camp, Alexander realizes that and he secretly goes with them. This resulted in a horrible idea getting Ben and Erica into problems like getting them lost in the woods, fighting some big black bears, and more. “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?”-Erica (page 136) Erica tells this to Alexander when Alexander got them into a fight with 3 huge black bears. The story starts with Ben finishing his last final exam and going into his room, in his bed he finds a letter that will change his plans for summer. The letter was from SPYDER and they were trying to convince him to leave the CIA and become part of SPYDER. If he rejected the offer he will be killed in the next 24 hours. “Maybe this summer wasn’t going to be as much fun after all” -Ben(page 10). He took the letter and gave it to Erica so she can check it “This note is practically serial there’s nothing, not even fingerprints”-Erica (page 19).

This was the introduction, know this is the major conflicts and solutions. First, on the way to the secret place of WoodChuck SPYDER attacked them blowing up the road leaving them with no place to go, Erika, Alexander and Ben jumped off the bridge to a lake keeping them alive. The others were taken by SPYDER and now is Ben, Alexander and Erica’s Job to rescue them. At the lake, they got out safely but Alexander wasn’t quite enough so 3 black bears came near them. It was such a panic situation that Alexander fell to the ground terrified, Erica and Ben started throwing rocks to the bears, just making them more furious. Erica and Ben decided to play it dead which resulted on the bears ignoring them and going away, Alexander was too afraid to move. The next problem was when SPYDER locate them in the middle of the forest and started bombarding them, no one was hurt because he or she got behind cover. The next and most dangerous situation was when everyone entered SPYDER’s secret base to save everyone. Entering they saw a surprise, a missile they needed to stop and save the others. Ben distracted SPYDER while the other’s rescue everyone else and they just got out in time before the missile blows up. Ben was kind of angry because Alexander took all the credit and he got none, “I wonder how much his ego is going to grow” -Ben (page 318).In the book there’s not really much symbolism, well the letter SPYDER sent Ben represents how evil SPYDER really is. Also, there are several themes to the story like Always keep your friends close to you, never give up, make friends in the trip and always love your relatives “I love him just that he is annoying”-Erica (page 208).

At the start, Ben hated Alexander for taking all his credit in the missions Ben accomplish. In the end, he didn’t hate him and he understood why he did that, to protect her daughter. My final review of the book is that is a really good book, excellent to teach kids how important is family and that reading is fun. I enjoyed this book a lot and I will try to keep reading the sequels. The writing was mysterious with moments of happiness and suspense, in my opinion, I think it's perfect the level of language managed in this story for younger kids. The writing got me into the book and has me hypnotized by the suspense and use of words. The book had a lot of strengths like the type of narrator, I think that it was magnificent that the main character was the narrator. A weakness I found was that the author didn’t describe enough like he didn’t describe what the characters wear and how they felt, when he described a place it was ok but the characters not.