Paul Zindel rarely fails to please and has won wide acclaim for much of his work, with titles such as My Darling, My Hamburger, The Pigman and Confessions of a Teenage Baboon riding as high in the popularity stakes now as they did when they were first published. In Raptor, Zindel continues to pack his customary punch a story that is at once touching and horrifying. In many ways, this is a deceptively simple, albeit fast-paced and, at times, stomach- churning adventure story, but Zindel also manages to cleverly raise issues about man's incomprehension of the bigger picture that leave the reader in little doubt that there is a moral to this tale. (Ages 10 to 13) --Susan Harrison