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    Escaping the Giant Wave
    Escaping the Giant Wave
    Escaping the Giant Wave
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Escaping the Giant Wave

    By Peg Kehret

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    When an earthquake hits on their family vacation, can Kyle and his sister survive the following tsunami?

    The Worst Vacation Ever!

    Thirteen-year-old Kyle thought spending a vacation on the Oregon coast with his family would be great. He’d never flown before, and he’s never seen the Pacific Ocean.

    One evening Kyle is left in charge of his younger sister, BeeBee, while his parents attend an adults-only Salesman of the Year dinner on an elegant yacht.

    Then the earthquake comes—starting a fire in their hotel! As Kyle and BeeBee fight their way out through smoke and flame, Kyle remembers the sign at the beach that said after an earthquake everyone should go uphill and inland, as far from the ocean as possible. Giant tsunami waves—three or four stories high—can ride in from the sea and engulf anyone who doesn’t escape fast enough.

    Kyle and BeeBee flee uphill as a tsunami crashes over the beach, the hotel, and the town. The giant wave charges straight up the hillside and through the woods where the children are running for their lives. The perfect vacation has become a nightmare! Somehow Kyle and BeeBee have to outwit nature’s fury and save themselves from tsunami terror.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateMar 17, 2015
    ISBN9781481445535
    Escaping the Giant Wave
    Author

    Peg Kehret

    Peg Kehret has written more than forty-three books for young people, and many have won numerous awards. Her books include mysteries such as Earthquake Terror; Five Pages a Day, the story of her life as a writer; and Shelter Dogs: Amazing Stories of Adopted Strays.

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    Reviews for Escaping the Giant Wave

    4/5

    92 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Thirteen-year-old Kyle thought spending a vacation on the Oregon coast with his family would be great. Kyle's perfect vacation becomes a nightmare while he's babysitting his sister, BeeBee.
    • 4/5
      pretty good

      it has a lot of description

      i’m nine and i was able to read it so that proves that almost anyone can read it
    • 5/5
      Thirteen year old Kyle is excited for his family vacation. He gets to fly on a plane for the first time and see the Pacific Ocean during their visit to Oregon's coast. As they are checking into the hotel Kyle sees a bully, Daren, from school. When Kyle’s parents go to an awards ceremony out on a large ship off the coast, they leave him to watch his sister, BeeBee, for the night. An earthquake hits and the hotel is on fire. They see Daren and try to help him get outside. Free from the flames, they feel safe. Kyle remembers a sign he saw at the beach about giant waves that can come after an earthquake. The sign said to get to higher ground. They had to get moving! Kyle tries to convince Daren to go with them, but he won't listen. Kyle and BeeBee start to trek up a nearby mountain. He's not sure how high up they need to go, but he knows they need to get away from the ocean. Along the way they find an elderly couple who is out walking their dog, trying to get to a safe place. Will a tsunami hit? Can l Kyle and BeeBee survive if it does? What will happen to their parents and Daren? You'll have to read this fast paced book to find out how it all ends.

      Escaping the Giant Wave by Peg Kehret was a page turner. I have read other books by this author and have enjoyed them all. I thought Kyle and BeeBee both seemed like characters I could relate to and because Kyle was 13 it made sense that his parents left them alone for the evening so they could go to the ceremony. It was easy to relate to Kyle’s disappointment when he found out that someone who was mean to him at school was staying at his hotel. From what I could see of Darren he didn't act very kind! I can’t imagine how scary it would be to be in a major earthquake. This is a great book for kids who like realistic fiction and lots of action! I learned a lot of survival tips from the story too! I look forward to reading more books by this author.
    • 3/5
      Narrated by Terry Bregy. Any kid reading this will never forget how to respond to a tsunami threat. They'll also learn about how earthquakes and tsunamis are tied together, and the destructive power of a tsunami. As in her other kid thrillers, Kehret has crafted a fast-paced story that will appeal to avid and reluctant readers alike. I wasn't sure about narrator Bregy who started out sounding way too old to voice 13-year-old Kyle. But I ended up being drawn into the story and probably due in part to Bregy's skill. He did do an amusing job portraying practical, billionaire-in-training BeeBee.
    • 5/5
      Kyle always wanted to babysit so he could get money. But when he gets to babysit Kyle and his sister BeeBee gets in a tsunami when their mother and father are on the ocean so they have to solve everything themselves. I recommend this book for people who like adventure books.
    • 5/5
      A normal family goes on a luxury vacation.But they had no idea they might get hit by a tsunami! While there parents were out on a cruise the worst thing happens to them.... they get hit by a tsunami!
    • 5/5
      it is about this kid and his sister and there have been roomers of this big wave going to hit the city but so the day that it came they are fighting to stay alive and trying to get to higher ground before the wave hits them
    • 5/5
      This is about kids who's parents are going on a trip and they went with them. Then while they were in the hotel alone a hurricane hits. These kids have to survive alone. How do they do it? You have to read the book to find out.
    • 4/5
      It descibed the events very well. Slow start, big finish. I felt it left some loose ends.
    • 5/5
      About a guy who's always getting pushed around by this one kid at school. His father wins a buisness trip and the bully goes to. There is a fire in the hotel. Kyle saves his life but the kid regrets it. Great for people who feel like they aare always getting pushed around.
    • 3/5
      This book recently won the Maud Hart Lovelace Award for 2007. I was less than impressed: The bully is a stock character, who, when confronted, does what every bully in every other book does. The main character and supporting characters are also a bit flat. It seems that the tsunami is the most important "character" in the story, yet it doesn't seem to be based upon any historical event. When did a devastating tsunami hit Oregon?

    Book preview

    Escaping the Giant Wave - Peg Kehret

    1

    If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

    No one in my sixth-grade class answered our teacher. I could think of lots of things about my life that I’d like to change but I wasn’t going to say them out loud, not even on the last day of school.

    Think about it. What do you wish was different? Mrs. Hoke asked.

    I wish I was six feet tall, my friend Gary said.

    Everyone, including Mrs. Hoke, laughed. Then she said, I want you each to write down four goals for your summer. They must be goals that you can work to achieve, not something over which you have no control, such as getting taller. You don’t have to turn your lists in. They are to help you improve yourselves.

    I think Mrs. Hoke’s goal was to keep the class out of mischief without having a bunch of papers to correct.

    I wrote my name, Kyle Davidson, at the top of a sheet of notebook paper and started my list:

    1. Raise my batting average over .250

    2. Learn to pop a wheelie on my scooter

    3. Get Mom and Dad to increase my allowance

    Think before you write, Mrs. Hoke said. Good goals have a long-term effect. A goal accomplished makes your life better.

    I put one elbow on my desk, rested my chin on my palm, and read my list. Yes. My life would definitely be better if my batting average went up, if I could pop a wheelie, and if I had more money.

    I was confident that I could achieve numbers one and two. All I needed was practice.

    Number three would be more of a challenge. I planned to mention frequently to my parents how much spending money my friends have. I would remind them that I feed Alexander the Greatest, our cat, and clean his litter box every night. I also carry out the garbage and make popcorn for the whole family when we rent a movie. I figured if I kept talking about how helpful I am, I’d wear Mom and Dad down, and they’d agree to give me more allowance.

    As I stared at my list, a hand shoved my elbow off the desk. My head jerked forward. Ooof! I said as I dropped my pencil.

    Behind me, I heard Daren Hazelton snicker. I didn’t need to turn around in order to know who had yanked my elbow.

    I sighed, retrieved the pencil, and finished my list.

    4. Make Daren Hazelton leave me alone

    As soon as I wrote it, I put my hand over that line, in case Daren peeked at my paper.

    Daren is the meanest kid in Edison School. He’s probably the meanest kid in the world. I bet Daren was born mean. He probably bit the other babies and kicked the nurses before his parents took him home from the hospital.

    I met Daren when I was five, on my first day of kindergarten. He came up behind me and bonked me on the head with a box of crayons. I didn’t want to be labeled as either a crybaby or a tattletale on my first day of school, so I walked away from Daren without saying or doing anything, and I didn’t tell the teacher on him.

    Big mistake.

    From then on, Daren sneaked up on me once every day. He punched me, poked me with a pencil, tripped me, and shoved me. He never hurt me enough that I had to go to the school nurse—he was too devious for that. His punches stung but didn’t bruise me; his pokes left an indentation but never broke the skin.

    By the time I got to first grade, being bullied by Daren had become a regular part of my day. It still is.

    I never punched him back because Daren always outweighed me by plenty. Now that we’re both finishing sixth grade, he stands five feet seven and is built like a brick wall, while I’m barely five feet tall and as skinny as a ruler.

    Size was only part of the reason I ignored Daren all those years. I dislike confrontations of any kind, and I avoid physical conflict most of all. I don’t even like to watch boxing or wrestling on TV.

    Fighting just isn’t my way of handling a problem and for the most part that’s a good thing. When I’m dealing with reasonable people I can settle any differences with discussion and compromise.

    Daren Hazelton is not a reasonable person.

    Daren Hazelton is a mean, big, strong troublemaker.

    I’m not the only one Daren hassles. He picks on the younger kids, and I’ve seen him start fights with older boys in the seventh and eighth grades. Some kids fight back and others complain to their teachers. Daren probably holds the school record for getting sent to the principal’s office the most times, but that hasn’t slowed him down one bit.

    I used to tell myself that brains are more important than brawn and that by avoiding a fight I was outsmarting Daren. Lately, though, I haven’t felt smart; I’ve felt like a coward. It was time to stand up to Daren at last and put an end to his sneak attacks. The question was, how?

    Read your goals once a week during the summer, Mrs. Hoke said. Good luck in achieving your ambitions.

    It will take more than luck, I thought as I folded my list and stuck it in my notebook.

    I wouldn’t see Daren during vacation, so I had three months to figure out a workable plan to keep him from punching me again next year. I decided to concentrate on my other three goals first, and worry about Daren in August.

    That afternoon I took home a year’s accumulation of items from my locker, including a petrified apple core, a coupon good for twenty cents off a bag of jellybeans (expiration date: two months ago), three overdue library books, and a pair of dirty socks that I didn’t put on after gym class one day when I was in a hurry. My backpack bulged. I would have tossed some of it away at school, but all the wastebaskets there were already overflowing with other kids’ trash.

    I was eating graham crackers and sorting through all the junk, when Mom made a surprise announcement.

    Due to your maturity and responsible behavior, Dad and I have decided that it is no longer necessary to hire a sitter for you and BeeBee.

    BeeBee is my little sister and yes, that is her real name. Mom and Dad couldn’t decide whether to name her Bernice, after Dad’s mother, or Barbara, after Mom’s mother, so they took the two initials and made up a brand-new weirdo name.

    If the two Bs stood for Brainy and Bizarre, the name would fit her perfectly. BeeBee is not your ordinary eight-year-old. Not by a long shot.

    When Mom gave me the no-more-baby-sitter news, she smiled expectantly, and I could tell she thought I would be glad.

    How much? I asked.

    Mom seemed baffled. How much what?

    How much do I get paid for watching BeeBee?

    Paid! Mom looked as if I had demanded a fee for making my bed or brushing my teeth.

    You always paid Shelly five dollars an hour, I said.

    That was different. Shelly was a hired sitter. You are . . .

    A slave.

    Kyle, don’t be ridiculous. You are a member of this family. We each contribute what we can, and you can help by taking care of BeeBee tomorrow night while your dad and I attend the monthly sales dinner.

    My parents both work for a large real estate firm. Dad sells commercial office space; Mom sells houses and condominiums.

    How long will you be gone? I asked.

    We need to leave at six, Mom said, and we should be home by ten. Ten-thirty at the latest.

    From six until ten-thirty, I said. That’s four-and-a-half hours. Shelly would get paid twenty-two dollars and fifty cents.

    All you have to do is heat up dinner, wash the dishes, and see that BeeBee goes to bed at eight-thirty. It will be a snap.

    Shelly gets a tip for doing the dishes, I said.

    Shelly doesn’t live here. Mom raised one eyebrow and gave me a look that suggested I wouldn’t live here much longer either if I said another word about Shelly.

    What if BeeBee won’t? I asked.

    Won’t what?

    Won’t eat her dinner. Won’t go to bed. Won’t do anything I say.

    "I’ll talk to her before we

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