GUINEA PIG: The Field Trip

Description

Miles Murphy survived seventh grade science. He survived the science fair. He survived Tyler Brandt.

He is not going to survive this field trip.

Ms. Ruiz has a plan. Three days. Two nights. Pinewood Nature Preserve. Tents, campfires, wildlife journals, and a biology unit worth 30% of their grade.

Miles has a tent assignment. He’s sharing with Dante Wheeler, who packed forty pounds of Bigfoot detection equipment and a baby monitor taped to a flashlight. And Tyler Brandt, who has never been camping, owns brand-new boots with the tags still on, and won’t admit he’s scared of anything except he’s clearly scared of everything.

There are port-a-potties. They are a 1 out of 10. And that’s being generous.

There are raccoons. Four of them. They stage a military-grade raid on the food coolers, steal an entire package of bacon, and leave with more dignity than any animal that lives in garbage has a right to.

There is a deer that is completely unimpressed by twenty-six screaming seventh graders.

There is a tent collapse. In a thunderstorm. At midnight. Nicky Chen crawls out holding a soggy granola bar and his glasses are sideways and he looks like a man who has seen the end of the world and survived it.

And there is a salamander. A tiny, orange-spotted, endangered salamander hiding under a rock by the creek. Harper Jones finds it. It might be only the ninth one documented in the entire state. And a group of loud, clueless nature vloggers with drones and ring lights are about to ruin everything.

Unless Miles does something about it.

He doesn’t want to be in charge. He doesn’t want to organize a secret wildlife protection mission with hand signals and stakeout shifts and a conspiracy theorist running interference. He doesn’t want to care this much about a four-inch amphibian he found under a rock.

But here’s the thing about Miles Murphy.

He keeps accidentally becoming the kid who does the right thing.

GUINEA PIG: THE FIELD TRIP is the second book in the series that Kirkus Reviews hasn’t reviewed yet but SHOULD. If your kid loved the first one, this is funnier. If your kid hasn’t read the first one, this works on its own. If your kid doesn’t read at all, hand them Chapter 7 and watch what happens.

We dare them to put it down.

Note To Parents – BOYS STOP READING HERE!

These books show boys that trying is harder than not trying and that’s exactly why it matters. Miles spends the whole series learning that the comfortable safety of “I don’t care” is a trap. He doesn’t learn this from a speech. He learns it from building things that break and building them again.

These books show boys that smart comes in different shapes. Miles is the thinker. Harper is the artist-scientist. Nicky is the organizer. Dante is the wild card who turns out to be right about things nobody believed. Tyler is the kid who’s been coasting on his dad’s work and slowly learns to use his own hands. Marcus is the quiet kid who knows everything but nobody asks. Every boy reading this will find himself in one of these characters.

These books show boys that failure is not the end of the story. It’s the middle. Miles fails publicly, repeatedly, and spectacularly. His robot attacks a refreshments table. His egg gets run over by a Camry. His dog pees on his invention. And every single time, he gets back up and builds the next version. That’s not a lesson delivered in a lecture. That’s a lesson delivered in a story a kid can’t put down.

These books show boys that being emotional doesn’t make you weak. Miles cries at the science fair. Nicky cries when Gerald gets second place. Dante cries when Fernando talks. Tyler admits he’s scared in the woods. None of them are punished for it. None of them are mocked. The feelings are just there, part of the story, part of being human, part of being twelve.

These books show boys that good men ask for help. Tyler’s entire arc across six books is learning to stop pretending he can do everything alone. He asks Miles to help with the bracket. He lets Marcus answer the judges. He builds his own pedal charger without his dad. Asking for help isn’t weakness. It’s the thing that makes Version Seven possible.

These books show boys that the adults in their lives matter but the adults can’t do it for them. Ms. Ruiz points. The kids walk. Dad buys the hiking boots but Miles has to break them in. Mom puts a glass of water next to him but doesn’t interrupt. Tyler’s dad builds the turbine but Tyler can’t answer the judge’s questions. The message is clear: the adults who help you grow are the ones who let you struggle.

These books show boys that girls are allies, not accessories. Harper is not a love interest. She’s the smartest person in the room and Miles knows it and respects it and learns from it. She doesn’t need rescuing. She rescues Biscuit with a whisper when nobody else can stop him. She’s a full character with her own ambitions and her own arc and boys reading this will see a girl they’d want on their team.

These books are genuinely funny. Not “educational book trying to be funny” funny. Actually funny. The kind of funny where milk comes out of your nose. Herbert’s funeral. The rogue robot. The vice principal’s tire. Biscuit throwing shoes at a wall-mounted dog feeder. Tommy Finch’s shoe bacteria reaching through the tape seal. A kid riding a golden retriever through a convention hall. These are the scenes kids will read to each other at sleepovers and remember when they’re thirty.

And underneath all the funny, these books are about one thing: becoming the kind of person who builds things. Not just machines and science projects. The kind of person who builds friendships and confidence and the willingness to fail in front of people and get up and try again. The kind of person a boy needs to become to grow into a good man.

That’s why these books are good for boys. Not because they teach lessons. Because they tell a story that a boy can’t stop reading, and the lessons are hidden inside the laughter like medicine inside a really good piece of candy.

The kid won’t even know it’s happening until it’s already done.