40 Fun Facts About Roland Smith

In Roland Smith's novel Peak, teenager Peak Marcello tries to become the youngest person to summit which mountain?

Mount Everest is the goal because Peak's father, a famous climber, wants the publicity of guiding the youngest summiter ever. The trip begins as Peak's way out of juvenile detention.

In Roland Smith's Sasquatch, a retired biologist admits to being which real man who vanished over the Pacific Northwest?

D. B. Cooper is the old man's secret identity, and he says he hijacked the airliner to pay for his son's cancer treatment. The real hijacker parachuted away with $200,000 in 1971 and was never identified.

Roland Smith's The Captain's Dog retells which American explorers' journey through the eyes of a dog named Seaman?

Lewis and Clark crossed the continent with Seaman, a dog Meriwether Lewis bought for $20, half a month of an Army captain's pay. He was the only animal to complete the whole trip.

Roland Smith's first book grew out of his work rescuing which animals after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska?

Sea otters soaked in crude oil were the patients, and Sea Otter Rescue became his first book. The tanker had struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound.

Roland Smith notes that he shares a November 30 birthday with which favorite American author of his?

Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835, exactly 116 years before Smith, who counts him among his favorite authors. Smith even records the minute of his own birth: 11:16 in the morning.

Roland Smith's third Cryptid Hunters novel is named after which legendary creature blamed for attacks on livestock?

Chupacabra continues the story begun in Tentacles, as Marty and his uncle search for kidnapped Grace while sightings of the creature are reported. Its Spanish name means goat-sucker.

At age five, Roland Smith received which heavy gift from his parents that became his favorite possession?

A manual typewriter that he says weighed more than he did kept him busy for hours, though he could not yet spell.

In Roland Smith's novel Tentacles, an expedition sails to New Zealand hoping to capture which deep-sea animal alive?

A giant squid is the prize, and the crew lures a live one to the ship with a submarine designed by the inventor Ted Bronson. A stowaway henchman spends the voyage working against them.

A Roland Smith novel won an animal-compassion award named after two characters from which children's classic?

Charlotte's Web gave the Charlotte and Wilbur Award its name, with the blessing of E. B. White's estate. Smith won it for a Wildes adventure about saving an endangered sea mammal.

In Roland Smith's Cryptid Hunters series, eggs of the legendary Mokélé-mbembé hatch into which long-extinct animals?

Dinosaurs are what the family ends up raising in secret, because Mokélé-mbembé is a water-dwelling creature of African legend often imagined as a surviving sauropod. A rival later steals both hatchlings.

Roland Smith was born in which Oregon city, where a part-time job at the local zoo began his animal career?

Portland is home to the Oregon Zoo, where Smith spent a decade as a keeper after impressing the foreman by catching an escaped bird bare-handed.

As a zoo biologist, Roland Smith helped reintroduce which endangered American predator, later the subject of his book?

Red wolves were bred in captivity and released back into the wild, and Smith coordinated that program for years. His Journey of the Red Wolf won an Oregon Book Award in 1996.

Roland Smith co-wrote alphabet picture books such as B is for Beaver and W is for Waves with which family member?

His wife, Marie Smith, is an author herself, and the pair have written a shelf of alphabet books together. Their subjects run from a zookeeper's working day to the Smithsonian Institution.

E is for Evergreen, an alphabet picture book co-written by Roland Smith, celebrates which US state by its nickname?

Washington is nicknamed the Evergreen State, and the book followed an Oregon alphabet, B is for Beaver. Smith knew the state well, having spent twelve years working at a zoo there.

Roland Smith was studying which subject at university, hoping to become a writer, when he took a part-time zoo job?

English was his major at his hometown university, and the zoo job was only meant to pay the bills. He stayed in animal work for more than twenty years before writing full-time.

At his first zoo job, Roland Smith astonished his boss by recapturing two escaped South American rodents of which kind?

Agoutis had vanished into the park around the zoo, and his boss sent him after them as a joke, sure they were gone for good. He came back with both.

In Roland Smith's Peak, the teenage hero is arrested after scaling which neo-Gothic New York skyscraper?

The Woolworth Building climb lands Peak in jail and in the news, which is why he is sent abroad with his long-absent father. The tower was the tallest in the world when it opened in 1913.

In Roland Smith's Peak, Peak Marcello's long-lost father Josh Wood runs a climbing company based in which Asian country?

Thailand is where Josh Wood has set up his business, and going to live with him there is Peak's alternative to juvenile detention. The offer turns out to have big strings attached.

Roland Smith's Sasquatch follows a Bigfoot hunt on which volcano in the American West as it threatens to erupt?

Mount St. Helens rumbles through the story while Dylan shadows a team that wants to shoot a Sasquatch, a plan his father hopes to stop. The real volcano erupted catastrophically in 1980.

Roland Smith's Elephant Run sends a London boy to his father's plantation in which country just before Japan invades?

Burma looked safer than London under the bombs of 1941, so Nick Freestone's mother shipped him there. Japanese troops soon seized the plantation and sent his father to a prison camp.

Seaman, the canine narrator of Roland Smith's The Captain's Dog, belongs to which large, water-loving breed?

Newfoundland dogs are strong swimmers that do well on boats, which made one a sensible choice for a long river journey. In the novel Seaman starts out as a pup chasing rats along the Ohio River.

The first book in Roland Smith's I,Q spy series is named after which Philadelphia landmark?

Independence Hall anchors the opening adventure of Q and Angela, whose musician parents are touring the country by luxury coach. Later books in the series move on to the White House and the Alamo.

In Roland Smith's Storm Runners, Chase Masters and his storm-chasing father are caught in which natural disaster?

A hurricane named Emily, billed as the storm of the century, strikes in the first book of the trilogy. The sequels follow it with rising flood waters and then a volcano.

In Roland Smith's Thunder Cave, Jacob Lansa crosses which African country looking for his biologist father?

Kenya is in the grip of a drought when Jacob arrives, and he teams up with Supeet, a Masai who hopes to bring the rains. Together they also face elephant poachers armed with guns.

In Roland Smith's Cryptid Hunters, Grace and Marty O'Hara fall from a plane into which African river basin?

The Congo is where their uncle stayed on an earlier expedition, and the pair shelter in his old base, the Skyhouse. They land with a tiny dog called PD, short for Pocket Dog.

Roland Smith's nonfiction book They Are Here! profiles thirty plants and animals to explain which environmental problem?

Invasive species in the book include brown rats, which reached America on a ship from England, and the pet pythons now thriving in Florida's Everglades. It also suggests ways to protect local ecosystems.

In Roland Smith's Peak, which young Sherpa climber does Peak Marcello allow to reach the summit ahead of him?

Sun-Jo is the son of a Sherpa who died on a climb, and standing on top first will bring money his family badly needs. Peak gives up a record and the fame that goes with it.

In Roland Smith's Zach's Lie, a family entering witness protection is moved to the remote town of Elko in which state?

Nevada hides the Osbornes after the father is arrested for drug trafficking and agrees to testify against his old boss. Elko's large Basque community becomes part of the story.

In Roland Smith's I,Q series, the thirteen-year-old narrator known as Q has which unusual full first name?

Quest grew up on a sailboat in Sausalito, California, with his singer mother. Her marriage to a songwriter put him on a tour bus with a new stepsister, Angela.

In Roland Smith's Elephant Run, the Freestone plantation, worked by timber elephants, produces which tropical hardwood?

Teak made the Freestones' fortune, and the plantation's working elephants include Hannibal, a bull with a dangerous temper. Smith had already written a nonfiction book about such timber elephants.

In Roland Smith's novel Jaguar, Jacob Lansa joins his father's expedition to create a big-cat preserve in which country?

Brazil is where Jacob's father, known as Doc, plans the preserve, but an explosion destroys their boat before the journey has begun. Jacob's first worry had been getting sent home to Poughkeepsie.

In Roland Smith's The Last Lobo, Jacob Lansa visits the desert reservation of which Native American people?

The Hopi reservation is Jacob's birthplace, and its people are divided over a lobo that is raiding their livestock. Some want it killed, while others believe it is a spirit of the plains.

Which Roland Smith novel continues Zach's Lie, as a drug lord hunts the Osborne family before his trial?

Jack's Run begins when the hero's sister appears on a reality television show and gives away where the family is hiding. The drug lord's agents then kidnap both siblings.

In Roland Smith's I,Q series, Q fills his hours on the family tour bus by practicing which hobby?

Magic tricks are Q's passion, while his stepsister Angela would rather read spy novels. Their only schoolwork for the year is a web diary of the band's travels.

In Roland Smith's Storm Runners trilogy, the Rossi family farm is the winter home of which kind of travelling show?

A circus winters on the farm, so the rising flood waters come with escaped lions and a mean leopard on the loose. In the final book the troupe is caught in Mexico after an earthquake.

In Roland Smith's Elephant Run, a kindly Japanese sergeant teaches captive Nick Freestone which traditional art?

Writing haiku is how Sergeant Sonji and Nick pass the time, and the soldier later helps Nick's father fake his death to escape a prison camp. Nick at first takes him to be crazy.

Roland Smith wrote Shatterproof, about Amy and Dan Cahill, for which multi-author Scholastic adventure series?

The 39 Clues has been written by a relay of authors that includes Rick Riordan and Gordon Korman. Smith's entry sends the Cahill siblings to steal the world's largest diamond.

In Roland Smith's The Edge, sequel to Peak, a climbing camp is attacked in which mountain range on the Afghan border?

The Hindu Kush hosts a peace climb dreamed up by a billionaire who wants to film young climbers from around the world. When attackers take Peak's mother, he sets out to track them down.

Roland Smith's climbing novel Peak won the 2007 children's category of which American literary prize?

The National Outdoor Book Award honors the best in writing about the outdoors, a natural fit for a climbing story. Peak also earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

In Roland Smith's Cryptid Hunters, the O'Hara children's jungle companion belongs to which kind of ape?

Bonobo is the answer hiding in the name: Bo lands in the jungle alongside the children and their tiny dog. Bonobos are close cousins of chimpanzees and among the nearest living relatives of humans.