Chasing the Falconers

I've mentioned before that I love to read with my children. A while ago, one of my sisters gave this series of books to us (On the Run by Gordon Korman) and we finally got around to starting it. Chasing the Falconers is the first book in the series.

Aiden and Meg Falconer live at Sunnydale Farm, a juvenile corrections center. They're good kids, though, so why are they there? Their parents were tried and convicted as traitors so are serving prison time and none of the relatives wanted to take the kids in because it was too embarrassing for them.

As Aiden relives what happened to bring them to this point, he remembers Agent Frank Lindenauer, or Uncle Frank to them. He recruited his parents to help in the global war on terror. The Falconer's developed profiles for US operatives to identify terrorist sleeper cells throughout the world. But somehow the profiles got into the hands of the terrorists and the Dept. of Homeland Security accused the Falconer's of aiding the enemies of their country. The trial went all wrong and Frank Lindenauer disappeared off the face of the earth so didn't testify on behalf of their parents. The kids were put in foster homes, but it didn't work out so their last name was changed to Eagleson and they were shipped off to Sunnydale Farm.

One night, they are able to escape and they take off on their own to find Uncle Frank. Aiden realizes there's a clue in Vermont and with just the clothes on their backs, and no food or money, they run from Sunnydale Farm (in Nebraska).

There are quite a few twists and turns and it got harder to put down as we got more involved in the story. We're glad we have the entire series so we could immediately start on book 2 when we finished book 1. It's a short read (154 pages) and took us a couple of weeks reading 1-2 chapters/day.

My rating: 4 stars