Kathleen Isaacs (Children's Literature)
With no better prospects, in a world where schools have closed and television entertainment provides all the education they might ever have, 14-year-olds Andrew, Polly, Robert, Billy, and Grace are the lucky winners of the chance to be on “Antarctic Historical Survivor,” a reality show. Sent to Antarctica to emulate Robert F. Scott’s Terra Nova expedition (1910-12), and supplied much as Scott was, they are unaware that cameras have been implanted in their bodies or that calamities, such as those that led to Scott’s death as well as the deaths of his four companions, have been planned for the show. Completely different, in personalities, temperaments, and skills, they will need to become a team and rely on each other's special abilities, the talents that gave them this opportunity, even if they are not quite sure what they are. Set in a scarily believable future when the U.S. has become a poor country, overwhelmed by unemployment, trash, and nuclear waste, this survival adventure uses extensive quotations from original source material from Captain Scott’s Expedition as well as other materials from the time. The author’s antipathy to some strands of our culture today is obvious, but her message will strike a sympathetic cord in teen readers. 2005, Eos/HarperCollins, $15.99. Ages 12 to 16.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 6))
This tale of five 14-year-olds in a life-endangering reality show sustains tension through the middle, but ends weakly. In a grim American future-a dystopia without complexity-television reigns supreme. Reality programming teases contestants with money for education beyond eighth grade while providing viewers a distraction from poverty and hopelessness. Its new gimmick is children: The DOE (Department of Entertainment, responsible for all television and schooling) sends five kids to Antarctica to simulate the historical 1911 Scott expedition to the South Pole. As with previous Historical Survivor series, injuries and deaths are welcomed for their high ratings. Nauseated by the spectacle, a sad DOE employee secretly helps the kids, but frigid polar conditions and DOE sabotage may triumph anyway. Quotations from Scott's real diary flavor the adventure, but White's ending lacks substance: the trip is aborted and the future (for characters and society) lies stagnantly between hope and despair. Some nice characterization and connection with historical explorers, but closes with an emptiness reminiscent of reality TV itself. (end note, bibliography) 2005, Eos/HarperCollins, 336p, $15.99. Category: Science fiction. Ages 10 to 14. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Michele Winship (KLIATT Review, May 2005 (Vol. 39, No. 3))
White's novel predicts the future of television as the source for all edu-tainment headed by the government's Secretary of Entertainment. In 2083, a toss of the dice determines which 14-year-olds win scholarships to continue their education and which will have to go out into the world of work to earn a meager living. For those who lose the toss, there is little else to do, unless selected to be a participant on one of the many reality shows where large cash prizes barely offset a year's tuition. The newest installment of the Historical Survivor series is a reenactment of Robert F. Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole by five 14-year-old kids. Polly, Billy, Andrew, Robert and Grace are selected because each of them brings a special talent to the show. Polly has a photographic memory. Grace is an Inupiat Eskimo. Andrew has remarkable navigation skills. Robert has excellent leadership and survival skills. Billy is the only one with serious snow and ice experience. Or is he? As the teens head out to Antarctica to start their expedition with the same equipment Scott's team used, they are monitored by the night shift in the Department of Entertainment. Steve has just been transferred to this shift, and the Antarctic Survivor kids have become his special project. Of course, no one on the original expedition survived, and whether or not these five contestants will make it to the Pole alive is just what sends ratings through the roof. Peppered with excerpts from actual historical documents, this novel marries historical and futuristic fiction in a thrilling page-turner. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2005, HarperCollins, 325p., $15.99. Ages 12 to 18.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May 2005 (Vol. 58, No. 9))
The year is 2083, and the American government has managed to pacify its downtrodden underclass with high-stakes reality TV, drawing their attention away from their inability to afford genuine food, housing, or education. A new series, Antarctic Historical Survivor, is starting, and it's got a twist: the five individuals selected to recreate the journey of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed polar party of 1912 are all fourteen-year-old kids. The five participants don't know that there will be no adult camera operators around to assist them (tiny cameras are secretly inserted into their corneas) and that the Secretary of Entertainment, indifferent to the welfare of the children, has arranged for dramatic calamities to befall them; the Secretary of Entertainment doesn't know that some of the tech crew have a secret policy of intervening to keep participants from tragedy. The future vision is fairly hackneyed (a touch of 1984 and an unlikely retention of many contemporary elements), as are the characters (there's the tough African-American kid, the spiritual Inupiak girl, the brainiac, the kid who's only in it for himself, etc.), and the writing is often pedestrian. The adventure itself is nonetheless fairly compelling (though there's a bit of irony in the fact that that appeal rests on the same factors that make the television program exploitative), since there's plenty of adversity, challenge, acrimony, and bonding on shipboard and the frozen continent itself, and the reality-TV idea is likely to prove an effective hook. Fans of such shows may find the future vision intriguing, and armchair adventurers will enjoy watching their age-mates fight the elements. Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, EOS/HarperCollins, 327p, $16.89 and $15.99. Grades 6-10.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2005)
Welcome to America's future: poverty, education by lottery, and...government-sponsored reality television? Five mismatched teens galvanize an apathetic nation against corruption while struggling to survive a reenactment of Robert F. Scott's 1912 Antarctic expedition. It's a provocative backdrop, but dizzying perspective shifts, static characters, and contrived epiphanies render the narrative experience entirely too similar to the entertainment trend White is critiquing. Category: Older Fiction. 2005, HarperCollins/Eos, 327pp, 15.99, 16.89. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 5: Marginal, seriously flawed, but with some redeeming quality.

Donna Bode (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews, (Vol. 18, No. 2))
It is 2083, and the United States is quite different from previous years. All education is presented in television shows re-creating historical events. Students eligible for high school and college are chosen by the throw of dice. There are many reality shows, and one of the favorites is Historical Survivor. Five teens, Andrew, Polly, Robert, Billy, and Grace are chosen to re-create the fatal expedition to the South Pole that Robert F. Scott made in 1910. The Secretary of Education is determined to re-create the expedition, but there are those in the television studio that make sure that the kids are safe, despite all of the pitfalls. A first novel, this is a true cliff-hanger. Fiction. Grades 9-12. 2005, Eos, 327p., $16.89. Ages 14 to 18.

Michael Levy (VOYA, June 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 2))
In a dystopian future, the U.S. government is nearly bankrupt, infrastructure is falling apart, education has been privatized, and the environment is a mess, but the population is kept pacified by television. The most popular show on the air is Historical Survivor, a program that does a shoddy job of recreating famous historical events and peopling them with contemporary down-and-outs who compete for money and fame. For the new season, the Secretary of Entertainment, a woman with all the charisma, patience, and depth of Cruella De Ville, has decided to redo Scott's failed journey to the South Pole, but to add drama to the event, she has recruited five fourteen-year-olds to play the roles of Scott and his party. Unknowingly each teenager has a camera implanted in his or her eye so that the enormous TV audience, supposedly some seventy percent or more of Americans, can watch a carefully edited version of their adventures. If there is not enough excitement, the Secretary has a series of pre-planned disasters ready to trot out when necessary. White is clearly extrapolating from any number of contemporary so-called reality shows, from Survivor to The Great Race. She manages to develop a number of decent action sequences during the course of the novel, but the book suffers from cartoon-like character development, mediocre language, and a number of unlikely plot devices and coincidences. As teen science fiction goes, this offering is definitely below average. VOYA CODES: 2Q 3P J (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, HarperCollins, 336p., $15.99 and PLB $16.89. Ages 12 to 15.