Leaving Protection, by Will Hobbs, is about an Alaskan, 16 year old boy, from Port Protection, called Robbie Daniels, who has wanted to go salmon trolling since he was very young. So he flies down to Craig to find a troller to work on. Soon he hears about an experienced fisherman, Tor Torsen, who owns the troller "Storm Petrel." Robbie goes to check it out. Nobody is there so he goes in, sees a mysterious plaque, and gets caught by Tor. Despite Robbie's mistake, Tor hires him. they fish up the panhandle of Alaska and Robbie learns that the plaque is a Russian Possession Plaque. Tor is selling them illegally, and Robbie is forced to help. Plus, Robbie thinks that Tor will kill him for knowing. Later, there's a storm on Fairweather Grounds and they have got to get to Lituya Bay for shelter. Tor falls off and makes Robbie save himself. Robbie gets to the safety of Lituya Bay, gives the plaque to the Bishop's House Museum in Sitka, and Tors daughter gives his family the Storm Petrel.
One of the main themes in this book is distrust. An example of how this theme is shown is when Robbie thinks about Tor. His thoughts almost always are full of distrust when he thinks of Tor. The book also shows that tor never really trusted Robbie with the Russian Possession Plaques. Distrust I believe is one of the main themes of the book.
I may recommend this book to other 7th grade readers, because it is interesting, but not as good as unrealistic fiction in my opinion. Personally, I prefer fantasy. I would suggest this book to people who prefer historical fiction over fantasy. I would like to read Will Hobbs' newest book "Go Big or Go Home" because it's a bit more unrealistic. I may suggest this book, because it is interesting, but in my opinion not as interesting a pure fiction.
I got this image from:
http://www.genrefluent.com/vol9no2.htm
