300 minutes of danger by Jack Heath

Scholastic, 2015. ISBN 9781760154035
Recommended. 300 Minutes of Danger is an action book written by Jack Heath. The book consists of 10 short stories each taking place in dangerous situations.
Each short story takes place during a 30 minute time span and all of the individual stories weave in and out of each other. The stories are all interconnected by character point of view or plotline, and they all take place somewhere that has been affected by the deadly 'flyrus'.
A thing I found interesting about the book was the fact that each story has a timer along the edge of the pages that counts down from 30 minutes. I think that this countdown is to signify the length of each story and gives the reader an indication of how much time is in each story.
The centre point of a lot of the stories in the book is the 'flyrus', which is a virus of epidemic proportions. I personally feel it helped make the individual stories feel like a whole book and it was a driving factor of a lot of the smaller stories.
I feel that the plot felt disconnected at times and there were a couple of stories where the end of one could have fed the beginning of another. Overall the stories were very connected showing what happened from different characters' perspectives or showing the aftermath of one story affecting another.
I found that the book was an enjoyable and easy read, which kept the reader wanting to see what happens next. The format of the short stories broke the book up in to quick, but nonetheless exciting reads and I feel that any kid who is fond of action stories would probably enjoy this.
Jake D. (Year 8 student)