The Lost Hunters by Nick Earls and Terry Whidbourne

Word Hunters series. University of Queensland Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780702249587.
Highly recommended for ages 9+. Lexi and Al continue their adventure to find the origins of various words which may have become lost over time. They realise that, not only are they about embark on their next quest to hunt for words; they also need to search for their grandfather. It would appear that he too had been a word hunter who had become lost in the past, along with the words and their meanings. En route, Lexi and Al meet yet another word hunter whose future they had previously impacted and, consequently, he joins them to make their task simpler. Will they achieve their aim and how will their endeavours affect their lives and those of others?
Not having read the first book in the series, I was initially a tad unsure about the characters and their roles. Despite that, I quickly became engrossed in the tale and devoured it in one sitting! Ideally, I would recommend that other readers take the more normal path of reading the series in sequence, however, in order for it to make more sense from the outset. This did, nonetheless, work as a stand-alone title. The adventure was sufficiently self-contained within the pages of the book. Not only did I enjoy the premise of the story but I loved the original sketches with which the pages were liberally peppered. The full page illustrations which began each chapter served to set the scene in terms of year and location or highlighted the words for which the children were hunting. A thoroughly enjoyable experience!
Jo Schenkel