Pearly and Pig and the Lost City of Mu Savan by Sue Whiting

Title: Pearly and Pig and the Lost City of Mu Savan

Author: Sue Whiting

Genre: Adventure

Publisher: Walker Books

Published: 8^th March 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 224

Price: $15.99

Synopsis: A fast-paced adventure series perfect for readers 8+, from award-winning author Sue Whiting.

Pearly Woe is a worrier.

But there is no room for worries when you are trying to prove yourself. Yet this is little comfort to Adventurologist-in-training, Pearly Woe, as she motors down the mighty Mekong River on another adventure. Pearly, Pig, and the entire Woe family are destined for the kingdom of Anachak, where they plan to search for the lost city of Mu Savan.

A jungle adventure! What could go wrong?

Everything. Of course!

~*~

Pearly Woe worries about a lot of things – everything, in fact, which isn’t great when you come from a family of Adventurologists, who travel the world seeking adventure and knowledge whilst leaving the places and communities that they visit intact. This time, they’re in Vietnam, along the Mekong Delta, and are travelling through the jungle to find Grandpa Woe’s old friend, King Alung Chu, and the city of Ban Noa – but it seems to have disappeared! The city appears to have been swallowed up by the jungle, along with the prince and princess, and his rather evil brother and his descendants have taken over. Soon, Pearly and her grandfather are imprisoned with Pig, who is determined to see his mother, the Divine Sow, whilst Pearly’s parents head off on a mission to help Ban Noa, and the kingdom of Anachak. So where has everyone gone, and why do they want to drive Pearly and her family away from Ban Noa?

Pearly’s latest adventure sees her separated from her parents, and worried that Pig will want to stay with his mother, the Divine Sow, when – and if – they find her. On top of this, her family are concerned that they can’t go on their adventure with all her worries – but Pearly is also determined that their adventuring won’t stop because of her. Even if she doesn’t feel like she will become an Adventurologist one day. When her parents go missing and Prince Tub, son of usurper, King Foom Chu and cousin to missing Prince Keej and Princess Jong, does all he can to make sure the jungle swallows them up – just like it swallowed others up – Pearly sets off to find them, and along the way, makes friends with Wah-Wah, a macaque who loves bananas and is determined to cause as much mischief as possible, and two elephants who help her after she helps them.

Again, the story is propelled forwards by Pearly’s worries and anxieties when she is separated from her family and gets into strife in the jungle, but it is her determination to see the adventure through that is the powerful aspect of her character. As worried as she gets, she doesn’t always want to worry, and armed with her knowledge of many animal languages – and many human languages – Pearly knows she can do things that people think she can’t – even if she has to convince herself to do so with a few pep talks from Pig. The exciting thing about this book is that we yet again do not need to leave home to travel – Sue Whiting and her words take us on the adventure into a different country, which she based on her travels to Vietnam and the hidden cities she found there that are like ancient ruins. She explains this in her author’s note and social media, so I think it gives the story something extra and gives readers a chance to discover the real lost cities of the world – the ancient ruins, the cities abandoned and overgrown with jungles and nature, that are being, as the characters in this book might say, swallowed up.

The jungle swallowing up people is a source of anxiety, and I think it is the physical manifestation of Pearly’s worries in this book. It represents the uncertainty that Pearly is feeling, the uncertainty and unease that everyone is doing and I think this was so well done, and makes the experience of reading the book so much better – because we get to see how worry and anxiety might be described – like you are being swallowed up by the world, to completely disappear forever like the lost city and lost people – but there is always hope, and for me, this was a key component of the novel because I think there always needs to be a sense of hope and joyful endings to come in children’s books, and I love that Sue Whiting has accomplished this with Pearly and Pig.

The second in this series brings the beloved characters back and reassures us that whilst some things look like they might change, there will always be people and things that are constants in our lives. Things and people that we can always count on to alleviate our worries and be there for us. It is a comforting book as it allows us to explore feelings of worry and anxiety through a fun, adventurous book. We are getting to know Pearly and her family book by book – which I am really enjoying – a good series allows us to get to know the main character more and more across each book, without giving us all the information at once. The first book establishes the character, and the subsequent books build on that, and I love the way that Sue Whiting is doing this with Pearly. I think this is a fun series for all ages – even as an adult I felt comforted reading this book and enjoyed going on an adventure with Pearly and Pig. I felt her frustration with Wah-Wah and  cheered when she succeeded. I think readers of this series will love this book and I definitely recommend starting from the first book to get everything joyful about these characters from both books. I’m really looking forward to seeing where Pearly and Pig go next!