Book Review: Girl Against the Jungle

By Anna Kim

This book is Girl Against the Jungle. The author is Monica Vincent. This story is about a girl in the jungle. It was Christmas Eve. Suzanne was with her mother at the Lima Airport in Peru. And she was aboard the plane. The plane took off and started to climb up into the sky. She looked out of the window. The sky was very dark. Then the rain started, and there was a flash of lightning. The plane started to spin. A bright yellow flame flashed out of the right wing of the plane.

She was wet and cold. “Where was I?” She could still feel her seat belt and she was still in her seat, but she wasn’t in the plane. She could see the jungle very clearly.

Suzanne’s father waited for his wife and daughter. He looked at his watch. The plane was very late. He sat close to the loudspeaker and listened carefully to the news. He heard a man’s voice: “This is the news. There have been terrible storms today. The 7:30 plane from Lima to Pucallpa took off late this morning. It crashed in the jungle this afternoon. There was 80 passengers on the plane. We are looking for the plane but we don’t know.”

He turned the radio off and he thought about his wife and his daughter. In the end, he went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep.

The rain hit her face. “I must get up and find my mother,” she thought. But she couldn’t get up.

She knows the jungle, so she was not afraid.

“Where is my mother? Where are the other passengers? Where is the plane?”
But her head felt strange and she couldn’t think clearly.
Night came suddenly.

And she woke up early the next morning and got up, but she still felt strange.
“It’s Christmas Day, and I’m in the jungle. The plane crashed, but I’m still alive.”
She thought about her home and her parents. “Dad’s waiting for us at home. I must find the way home.”

She started to walk. She took four or five steps but the world started to spin again.
“What am I going to do? I must find a river. I must not stop,” she thought.
Perhaps there were snakes or poisonous spiders under the leaves. She wasn’t afraid and she didn’t feel any pain, but she was very tired. Sometimes she saw fruit in the bushes and on the trees.

“I was a lucky girl. I am still alive. Now I must find the way home,” she thought.
Then she woke up very late the next morning. The sun was high in the sky, so she got up quickly and started to walk along the bank of the stream. She could smell dead bodies. She was afraid.

“Are all the other passengers dead?” she thought. “A, I alone in the jungle?”
She started to walk along the bank.

Suzanne’s father tried to work. He was alone. His wife and daughter were dead so he only had his work. It was eight days since the crash. Men flew over the jungle for three days but they didn’t find the plane. People can’t live in the jungle after a plane crash.

Suzanne had to lie down, so she looked for a safe place. She saw a boat in the river.

“Some hunters have come here,” she thought. “Perhaps the hunters will come back soon.”

Suddenly she heard men’s voices. “Hello!” a man shouted. “Who’s sitting there? Who are you?”

“Hello,” she said weakly. “I’ve lost my way home. I was in a plane. It crashed on Christmas Eve. I fell from the sky and now I’m trying to find Pucallpa. My father is waiting for me.”

“Come on,” said the hunters. “We must find a doctor.”

They washed her and gave her some food. Then they took her to the boat.
She was very weak and very tired. but she felt happy.

She lay between cool white sheets. Her father came into the room. He cried. And she felt tears in her eyes.

“I know,” he said, “but you’re still alive.”

“My mother really is dead,” she thought and her eyes filled with tears. For the first time sine the crash she started to cry.