The title of Evans's (Math Rashes
) picaresque novel refers to the Magellan Voyage Project, one of 24 groups sponsoring a 12-year-old participant in the Great Global Game. The most valuable player—and winner of a $4 million prize—will be the kid who can travel around the world fastest, using only surface transportation, within the allotted 40 days. Lured by the prospect of fame, fortune and adventure, San Francisco resident Adam, when approached by the MVP's leader, accepts the challenge. The boy believes he is the sole traveler rather than one of two dozen competitors in a race—but soon learns otherwise when he meets another player, Meredith, on a train headed to New York. The two meet up again—this time in a "detention center" in France to which, as part of the game, contestants are brought after they are captured by individuals called "trackers." After escaping from this facility, Adam and Meredith team up temporarily to travel east, until she sneaks off a train while they cross Siberia. Evans interjects some entertaining episodes and tidbits about various cultures, but extraneous detail, silly diversions ("I'll see England, I'll see France. I hope no one sees my underpants," he tells his MVP "pilot") and an overdose of palindromes burden the narrative. Readers may find the pace of Adam's journey sluggish and its resolution curiously anticlimactic. Ages 8-12. (Oct.)
