Panic At Emu Flat

“Sit down, please.” The magistrate motioned to two burgundy leather chairs set at angles in front of his massive oak desk. Patrick slipped into one of them. He couldn’t remember feeling smaller in his life. “You understand, young man, what a profoundly serious matter this is?”

Book: Panic at Emu Flat (The Adventures Down Under Book 8) by Robert Elmer, Bethany House Publishers, 1999

Genre: Historical Fiction

Target Audience: Boys 12-16

Subjects: Friendship, Peace, Fear, Crime, Hope

Summary: Life as he knew it completely changed when his dad was exiled to Australia with Patrick and his family following behind on another ship. Australia has brought numerous adventures, many of them quite serious, some even life-altering. But life is possibly going to change again. His dad has been pardoned and offered a job back in Ireland. But first, there are a few more intense and once again, possibly life-altering adventures to be had in Australia. The McWaids are still running the paddle streamer down the river. They’ve lost a crew member – Patrick’s friend Jefferson – to the competition, a fancier steamer – the Victoria. They’ve gained some rather unusual cargo in exchange for Jefferson though. The Victoria had been given a bunch of ostriches to transport but refused to take them any further, leaving the McWaids to pick them up, along with a rather interesting passenger heading to the same place as the ostriches. The ostriches prove to be more than just interesting as they create some adventures of their own for the McWaids. Just when Patrick thinks things can’t get any more complicated of difficult though, rumors of a death start traveling around and Patrick finds himself right in the middle of it.

Notes: Dingo Creek Challenge is the eighth and final book in the Adventures Down Under series. The books tell the story of Patrick, his sister and his little brother as they face the challenges of trying to survive in Australia shortly after it was being settled as a prison colony. The author found many of the adventures someone living there at that time would have faced and has Patrick, his family and his friends encounter them all throughout the course of the series.

This eighth book focuses on courage and peace. Patrick is overwhelmed with a sense of everything being wrong and danger ahead. Then when he finds out he may be responsible for the death of a man, he becomes even more afraid and walks around completely defeated, having given up all hope of anything good ever coming to him again. A man in church approaches him and says that lots of people are praying for Patrick, gives him a gift and tells him to “thank the Lord” rather than him, sort of inspiring him to find hope again.

Spiritual Content Recommendation Scale: 4/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

Romans 5:1-5 – Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.