Death Down Under (#15)

by Roy MacGregor

The Screech Owls are flying around the world to Sydney, Australia, site of the 2000 Olympics, for an exhibition tournament to promote ice hockey in the sports-mad land down under. The trip, however, involves much more than hockey. The teams coming to Sydney will take part in "The Peewee Olympics" - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the youngsters to compete in real Olympic sports facilities. What will it be for Nish? The pole vault? Synchronized...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771056443
• ISBN13: 9780771056444
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.5" x 7.1"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

More Hockey Excitement

I must tell you that I'm kind of a hockey fan. Well, who couldn't like all that checking and fighting? I also like books with suspense, adventure and action. In this book there is lots of all of the above. This book is just one of the 18 books from the Screech Owls series. The hockey team the Screech Owls goes to Sydney Australia to play the mini-olympics, which are a series of Olympic games. When they get to Sydney they play a hockey team from Australia called the Sharks. After the game they meet a kid named Wiz. Wiz was a great hockey player even though he lived in Australia where they don't really have much ice.The main characters in this story are Travis, the captain of the Screech Owls, Sarah a very good hockey player who is center on the Screech Owls, Nish who plays defense on the Screech Owls, and finally, Wiz who they meet in Australia. Before their first game they go to an aquarium where they see a great white shark. There was a head of a human in the mouth of the shark. The police didn't find the body in the shark so it couldn't have eaten the man. After this terrible accident the Screech Owls all felt sick, but got over it. After a few more games, Wiz asks Travis and Sarah if they want to go on a cruise on the ocean and do some scuba diving. Travis invites Nish and Fahd. When they go scuba diving they see sea dragons. Nish gets separated from the group and gets attacked by a man who was capturing sea dragons. Nish eventually gets away and they find out that a bowl of soup made out of a sea dragon was worth about $700. So now most of the Screech Owls and Wiz are investigating and somehow it all comes together. So they have to worry about the mini-olympics and this man who is stealing endangered sea dragons and maybe accused with murder...OpinionI think this was a pretty good book, not very challenging for an 11 year old, but still good. This book doesn't have as much action as the other books in the series, but it has a lot of adventure. If I had to rate this book I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10 because of the excitement and action. The age group for this book should be grade 3 to 5, maybe 6. I'm in grade 6 but I read this book in a hour. It has only 124 pages.