Thanks to the efforts of people like Al Gore and David Suzuki, environmental issues are at the top of many youngsters’ minds these days. Add to that the huge popularity of graphic novels among young readers, and it only makes sense that an action-packed book in this format, with the added bonus of a wilderness setting, will appeal to the preteen crowd.

Wild Ride, the first in a new series called Graphic Guide Adventures, is just that kind of book. In its 64 fast-moving pages, author Liam O’Donnell and illustrator Mike Deas tell the story of three kids – Devin, Nadia, and Marcus – who fly into the B.C. interior to visit their environmentalist parents, only to find themselves stranded after the plane crashes and the pilot dies. A bureaucrat who may be accepting payoffs from a logging company also survives the crash, but is injured. Trying to survive a fire, an angry bear, and, perhaps worst of all, the crooked government flunky, the three citified kids have to draw on all of their survival skills to make it home alive.

Fans of graphic novels will like the edgy, clever illustrations and the zippy back-and-forth dialogue between the kids. Savvier readers, though, may be turned off by the repeated “lessons” about basic wilderness survival: for example, when the kids face off against an angry bear on a mountaintop, Devin delivers what feels like a textbook lecture on how to survive an attack. (“He’s testing us. Don’t make eye contact. He’ll think we’re challenging him…. It’s a frightened animal defending itself…. Don’t surround him. Give him a way to escape.”)

Providing young readers with wilderness survival tips is one of the book’s aims, but it would have been useful to standardize measurements throughout. Instead, we get figures in both imperial (“find two Y-shaped supports about five to six feet tall”) and metric (“fold the blanket until it is about 1 meter square”), an inconsistency that’s jarring.

In the end, readers’ enjoyment will hinge on whether or not they resent the overtly didactic parts of the book. If they can get past the wilderness lectures, they will certainly enjoy this fast-paced, well-drawn story.