Loch

Fifteen-year-old Loch and his younger sister join their father on a scientific expedition searching for enormous prehistoric creatures sighted in a Vermont lake, but soon discover that the expedition's leaders aren't interested in preserving the creatures.Fifteen-year-old Loch and his younger sister join their father on a scientific expedition searching for enormous prehistoric creatures sighted in a Vermont lake, but it soon becomes obvious that the expedition's leaders aren't interested in preserving the creatures

From Publishers Weekly

With its prehistoric quarry and gore-spattered action ("Erdon's last conscious thought was the realization that he was being chewed in half"), Zindel's latest calls to mind a waterlogged version of Jurassic Park. For years, Loch and his spunky younger sister Zaidee have trailed after Dr. Sam, their renowned marine biologist father, as he travels the world searching for behemoths like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster. Dr. Sam's boss is the wealthy and inexplicably evil Anthony Cavenger, the father of Loch's love interest Sarah, a spoiled but good-hearted clotheshorse saddled with the novel's most inane lines. Exploring a remote Vermont lake, Cavenger and his entourage have a brief but bloody encounter with what seems to be a Plesiosaurus, a fanged cousin of "Nessie." The next day, Loch and his sister meet up with Wee Beastie, a playful infant Plesiosaurus that endears itself to the youngsters with its "otherworldly singing." Determined to protect Wee Beastie and its fearsome kin, Loch, Zaidee and Sarah embark upon a muddled rescue plan that has the dubious virtue of bringing about the slaughter of nearly all the bad guys. The insight and wit of Zindel's best work are conspicuously absent. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9?Zindel draws on his scientific background in this story of Luke Perkins, 15, nicknamed "Loch" after claiming to see a lake monster as a little boy. He and his younger sister, Zaidee, join their oceanographer father on an expedition searching for enormous prehistoric creatures sighted in Lake Alban in Vermont. Their leader, Cavenger, is a ruthless despot who would just as soon annihilate as preserve the Plesiosaurs, water beasts thought to be extinct for over 10 million years. The siblings and Cavenger's daughter befriend Wee Beastie and help it and its family escape to safety; Dr. Perkins, who has been diminished in his own and his childrens' eyes by selling out his ideals in his need for money, redeems himself. The book is really about what makes a family, whether human or creature, as Loch and Zaidee adjust to their mother's death and help their father regain his self-respect. The gruesome attacks by Pleisosaurs on some humans are gory and grisly enough to satisfy even the blood-thirstiest of middle schoolers. Zindel's style capably blends descriptive, figurative language with YA dialogue.?Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, MECopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Readers who enjoy gory horror stories will appreciate Zindel's latest, in which lovable (though human-eating) creatures trapped in a Vermont lake become prey for a ruthless man. Sixteen-year-old Loch and his sister Zaidee accompany their father, a marine scientist, on a job for Mr. Cavenger, who finances scientific expeditions. Loch expects their search for modern-day plesiosaurs to be a washout. Instead, creatures do appear, and they're vicious when annoyed. Even so, Loch, Zaidee, and Cavenger's daughter manage to befriend one of them, and when they discover that Cavenger intends to kill the beasts, they are horrified. The climax is dramatic, and the horror elements of the story are successful. As a story about kids and their fathers, however, the book doesn't work: Cavenger is despicable, and Loch's father is simply a submissive wimp. Chris Sherman

From Kirkus Reviews

The Loch Ness Monster lives in this latest adventure by award-winning author Zindel (The Pigman and Me, 1992, etc.). The beast resides in small Lake Alban in Vermont with his wife and little monsters, trapped there by a man-made salmon grid that blocks the lake's opening back to the deep waters of Lake Champlain. The monster is no mythical creature here but a plesiosaur--a prehistoric cetacean that has survived until the present. Loch, a 15-year-old so nicknamed because he claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster (``Nessie'') ten years earlier in Scotland, lives with his father, Dr. Sam Perkins, and his younger sister, Zaidee, near the lake. Dr. Sam, a marine biologist, works for Anthony Cavenger, who spends fortunes seeking out monsters like Big Foot and Nessie. After reported sightings at Lake Alban, Cavenger and his pseudoscientific, paramilitary organization go to Vermont to investigate. They find the plesiosaurs--who have not devolved like the once fierce sturgeon, as an unlucky photographer and a local yokel discover the hard way. Ruthless Cavenger intends to take the animals alive, dead, or blown to bits. But Loch, Zaidee, and Cavenger's teenage daughter, Sarah, have discovered and befriended a young plesiosaur. They realize that the plesiosaurs are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures, and that it is up to them to save the magnificent beasts. Fast, furious, and masterful. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Paul Zindel who won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Effects of Gamma Rays On Man-In-the-Moon Marigolds,once again draws upon his scientific background for Reef Of Death. His most recent books for Harper Collins include The Doom Stone and Loch, both Recommended books for the Reluctant YA Reader (ALA), and the tragicomic memoir The Pigman & Me, which School Library Journal said in a starred review "allows readers a glimpse of Zindel's youth, gives them insight into some of his fictional characters, and provides many examples of universal experiences that will make them laugh and cry." The Pigman & Me was both a 1993 ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a 1993 ALA Notable Children's Book. Mr. Zindel lives in Montague, New Jersey.

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