E-books & Kids

HIVE: Escape Velocity fast and fun

HIVE Escape Velocity is all about action and technology. If you’re a kid who likes action and technology, you’ll probably enjoy this book, which is the third in a series of seven. The books by Mark Walden are full of action, smart kids, and evil, evil dudes. The good guys are villians. The bad guys are also villians. You're cheering for the villians. You're mad at the worse villians. You don't care that you love the bad guys because you're having so much fun.

In Escape Velocity, first scene brings you straight into a helicopter shoot-out at the London Eye, the huge Ferris Wheel perched above the Thames River. And the action keeps going from there.

When a book series is described as “Harry Potter, but with villains instead of wizards,” you know you’re in formula-land. HIVE, or the Higher Institute of Villainous Education, is a boarding school for evil geniuses (like Hogwarts  but for villains…get it? It’s not a castle on a moutain but a lair inside a volcano).

In the series’ third book, Escape Velocity, the headmaster gets kidnapped, and GLOVE, the Global League of Villainous Enterprises, brings in an evil Contessa to lead the school. A little familiar to Harry Potter fans? Well, no one said this series breaks new ground. But it is fun watching the kids, lead by protagonist Otto, find their beloved Head of School using their wits and their gadgets.