In the Desert (Adventures of Archibald and Jockabeb) - Paperback

by Art Collins (Author)

Having narrowly escaped an evil shaman and supernatural black jaguar deep within the Amazon jungle in Book 3, the fourth book in The Adventures of Archibald and Jockabeb series finds the two brothers on school field trip to California. After the boys are accidently stranded in the middle of the night in a remote part of the Sonoran Desert, they meet a mysterious old man named George Washington Natonto. Accepting the old man's offer to spend the rest of the night at his underground home at Lizard Flats launches one of the boys' strangest and most harrowing adventures to date. As a gray-haired Gypsy woman's tarot card reading, an ancient legend of how a young Indian girl battled a renegade warrior, and several creatures from Jockabeb's recurring nightmares all begin to converge, the trapped brothers decide it's high time to escape Lizard flats and start their perilous journey back to civilization. What they next encounter in a subterranean grotto, and later out in the scorching desert, provide a true test of their survival skills and the power of the last bit of Haktu's blue feather. In addition to learning interesting facts about tarot cards, the history of Southern California, and what lives in the Sonoran Desert, the reader will once again witness the classic battle between good and evil play out as Archibald and Jockabeb continue to mature as young teenagers.

Author Biography

When Art Collins retired as a highly successful chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company, he didn't write the book on leadership that many expected. Instead, he decided that penning children's stories would be far more interesting. Borrowing two characters, Archibald and Jockabeb, from tales told by his father many years before, and drawing up his own rich imagination, Art introduces the two young brothers to an incredible cast of characters - some human, some otherworldly - in locations that range from the mysterious forest behind the boys' house to the lush and exotic Amazon. Collins honed his stories by running them past his target audience; fourth-graders taught by his brother Geoffrey Collins, who allowed his classes to be used as a focus group over several years. Art currently divides his time between Chicago and the Vail Valley in Colorado.