The Wildes Books in Order

The Wildes series combines family adventure with real-world conservation issues. Siblings Asia and Ring Wilde don’t attend a regular middle school. Instead, they travel with their scientist parents and a tutor, helping with fieldwork and animal care wherever endangered species need attention.

In The Wildes: The Amazon, a research trip to Brazil goes sideways when their mother, Dr. Jane Wilde, disappears in the rainforest. Asia and Ring are suddenly on their own with their tutor, Prof. Bob, and a local guide. To track Jane, they have to navigate flooded rivers, dense jungle, hostile illegal miners, and corrupt officials, all while trying to safeguard the golden lion tamarins at the center of her study.

The Wildes: The Vaquita shifts the action to Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. The family joins efforts to save the vaquita, a tiny porpoise on the edge of extinction. Illegal fishing, organized crime, and political pressure swirl around the few remaining animals. Asia and Ring split their time between boats and remote villages, piecing together who is sabotaging the rescue attempts and why.

In Captivity, the siblings return home to Texas and their family’s animal park, the Wilds. Bringing rescued vaquitas into captivity for their own protection sparks protests, media battles, and threats from people who have tangled with the Wildes before. Security breaches, animals set loose, and a campaign to discredit the park force Asia and Ring to defend not only individual species but the whole idea of a modern conservation facility.

Across the series, Roland Smith draws on his own years in zoos and animal rescue. The stories move quickly—there are kidnappings, storms, and daring escapes—but they also pause to explain how field research works, what makes a species so vulnerable, and how culture and politics can help or hinder saving it. Asia’s analytical mindset and Ring’s more impulsive energy give readers two different ways into the same dangerous situations.

If you like adventure with a strong environmental thread and siblings who are competent without being perfect, start with The Wildes: The Amazon and follow the family through The Vaquita and Captivity.