
UK Price: £5.99
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192pp
Ages: 9+
Size: 198x129mm
ISBN: 9781905294886
Publication Date: January 2009
Baboon
Written by David Jones
A plane crash. A mysterious transformation. An adventure unlike any other.
Fourteen-year-old Gerry and his parents are returning to their research camp in the African savannah when their plane crash-lands in the jungle.
When Gerry wakes, he has a terrifying shock. He is now a baboon. Using his human intellect and powers of reason he ensures his survival and growing acceptance by a baboon troop. Just when things are getting comfortable, a shock attack by a leopard triggers Gerry’s re-entry into his own body.
In hospital, Doctor’s tell him he has awoken from a coma – but does Gerry have the scars to prove otherwise?
Fast-paced, clever, real-life action adventure from a talented new writer, that draws readers - especially boys aged 9-13 years - into a fascinating animal world.
Reviews:
'4* review - BABOON is sure to please. Highly Recommended.' CM MAGAZINE
'Readers craving adventure and nature-based drama will find this ... engrossing ...' SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
'Wild adventure gets a new twist ... the thrilling facts of animal behavior will stay with readers.' BOOKLIST
He was amazed that they hadn’t run away or threatened him. Apart from their natural instincts to flee from people, if they had seen him fall on a baboon, they must have realized that he was dangerous – if only out of clumsiness.
And then they all returned to foraging, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about a boy falling out of the sky and crushing one of them. But when Gerry looked to where he had been lying a moment ago, he saw nothing but a patch of flattened grass.
Without thinking, he reached up to shade his eyes and saw that same thin baboon’s hand coming at his face. He flinched, and the hand stopped. For a long moment he just stared at the creased black palm and the five delicate fingers. He wiggled his fingers. The fingers wiggled. It was his own arm he was seeing. To prove it, he turned the hand slowly from back to front before his eyes. He felt a soft grunt that started in his chest and rose in his throat. He looked down and saw his body.
Somehow, he was a baboon.
Or rather, his mind was residing in a baboon’s body.
Wait. Wait. That couldn’t be. There was something he was missing, some … He brought a hand to his face. He had been about to press it to his forehead and comb his fingers back through his hair, as he usually did when he was upset, only there was no forehead.
His hand – that thin, black baboon’s hand – was one moment at eye level and the next touching a bristled brow of hair, and then above that … air.
He had no forehead. For some reason, that was much more frightening to him than having a baboon’s hands.
He paced in circles, trying to get away from this ridiculous idea that was, moment by moment, becoming more real.




























































