Why would someone willingly forego television, amusement parks, shopping malls, and other staples of an American childhood? For Ron Snell, whose parents are missionaries, life in the U.S.A. seems like a concentration camp compared to growing up among the Machiguenga Indians in the jungles of Peru. There, Ron, or "Rani" as the Indians call him, and his siblings learn to tie a house together, eat monkeys and macaws, and make dug-out canoes. "Life was one great adventure after another," the author declares. "After all, what could be more fun than perching in thorn trees at night to escape stampeding pigs?" In It's a Jungle Out There!, book one in a three-book series of "Rani Adventures," Ron's life and fun times begin in this fast-paced, riotous romp through the Amazon jungle. The Machis become his first babysitters and friends who laugh at his log rides down rampaging rivers and catch exotic pets for him as he grows up truly "in the middle of nowhere," as he describes it. Some adventures include early Christmas parties with games of "pin the tail on the tapir" and the story of Matso, Rani's pet ocelot who is shipped off to a zoo after he makes feasts of neighbors' pets. A death-defying ride through the Andes in an antiquated Chevy teaches the family about God's unfailing provision in the midst of circumstances that would confound many.;