After struggling to grit-my-teeth-and-bear-it my way through this book's casual racism ("magical Natives" trope, anyone?) and just shy of racist "country" turns of phrase (I literally had to put the book down at one point to go check the origin of the phrase "in a coon's age" to see if Wallace was literally talking about raccoons or if there was a straight-up slur in this children's book...), I give up. I made it to the scene in which the two little boys get into a pages-long fist fight over whether or not one of them is "chicken".

He kept slugging at Gary. Every once in a while, he felt the soft "give" as his knuckles slammed into Gary's stomach. [...] Brian tried to throw him off--only every time he raised his head, Gary'd hit it, making Brian's face bounce against the pavement. [...] Now he was on top. He started pounding Gary in the face. He'd punch him, then wait until Gary's head had time to bounce against the road before he hit him again.

The scene lasts for multiple pages and finally ends with the two boys literally falling into a bunch of shit, and if that's not an apt metaphor, then I don't know what is.

When it comes to the casual racism alone, I could probably convince myself to push on and keep reading. When it comes to the violent displays of childhood toxic masculinity alone, I could probably convince myself to push on and keep reading. But I'm not going to struggle against multiple different fronts of toxic bullshit just to read a children's adventure story. Neither of these issues should even be in a children's book in the first place.

I'm quite content to just leave this book back in the 80s where it belongs, thanks.

This is a great adventure book for kids, full of mystery, hidden treasure, missing maybe murdered grandpas, and the town witch. Although probably geared more for boys than girls, I read it and re-read "Trapped in Death Cave" all through my elementry and middle school years and then I read it to my kids as soon as they were old enough. It's always been one of my favorite stories.

This is a great adventure book for kids, full of mystery, hidden treasure, missing maybe murdered grandpas, and the town witch. Although probably geared more for boys than girls, I read it and re-read "Trapped in Death Cave" all through my elementry and middle school years and then I read it to my kids as soon as they were old enough. It's always been one of my favorite stories.

I read Trapped in Death Cave by Bill Wallace for my mystery novel. It is about 2 young boys, Bill and Gary who are trying to solve the murder of Gary's grandfather. Gary's grandfather knew about a hidden treasure and someone murdered him so they could have it for themselves. I would say sixth grade and up for the grade level. The only content concerns were discussing murder in the book. This book is the perfect mystery book. It has clues, a murder, and an unlikely friend to help them. This is a perfect example to discuss mystery genre. It could also be used to discuss geography and map making. The book was very descriptive so it could be used when teaching adjectives as well. I was not as interested in this book as I thought I would be. This is a book young boys would thoroughly enjoy though.

I remember reading this as a kid and thinking it was pretty generic.