After listening in school, Eevie Davenport and Tommy Prescott follow up on their friend’s story of a tree that tried to attack him. After the three of them find nothing that afternoon, Eevie and Tommy promise to go back later that night and get some more footage of the tree. Sneaking into the park, over the fence, they make their way in the dark to the area. to their horror the tree not only attacks them, but drags them into an underground tunnel. With no way to go back up, they find themselves heading down to see if they can get out. While trying to understand how and why they ended up here, they find themselves having to solve riddles and and face dangers while trying to survive the deadly perils in their way.

This is a middle grade Children’s book following the first adventure of Eevie and Tommy as they are trapped underground. The plot is straightforward and keeps the focus completely on the situation that Eevie and Tommy find themselves in. Each of the perils becomes clearer as they find out about them and attempt to solve them. It’s interesting to show that there is a lot of danger and both of them are not walking through easily, but are certainly in danger from the start.

The writing is clear and simple and doesn’t dumb anything down or patronise anyone reading it. The puzzles that are solved are real enigmas to solve and half the fun for someone of a younger age would be to try and solve them before Tommy and Eevie do. I did enjoy following the events of the story as it was descriptive and clear and it kept me following to the end. Not only is the story excellent, the characters that take us along are a joy to follow. The rapport between Eevie and Tommy is excellent and comes across naturally as two kids having an adventure, both excited and frightened by equal turn throughout the story. Both of them come across well as we swap between the two characters through the story.

The only real surprise for me was that the friend whose story started it all, dropped out after the first few chapters and is not really part of the tale after that. The editing of the book is good, the chapters are clear and help to break up the story well, giving a nice sense of progression. I didn’t see any major spelling or grammar errors to take me out of the story. There is also a brief excerpt of the next story at the end of the book to show how it continues.

Overall, this is a great book for younger kids to read and there are several more stories to follow if they are of interest.