12. The Nature of Disappearing by Kimi Cunningham Grant

listened on Libby

304 pgs. (9:41)

2024
adult mystery/thriller
Finished 3/5/2025
Goodreads rating: 3.66
My rating: 3
Setting: contemporary Idaho woods

My comments: Relationships, trust, addiction, survival skills and poor self-esteem seem to be the main themes of this book.  I enjoyed the adventure of being miles and miles into land where there's no one else, including no wi-fi.  But I wasn't fond of the way the story kept flipping back-and-forth to tell the whole story.  I usually don't mind this sort of thing, but this one didn't work for me....this could've been told at once in a much shorter, less boring presentation.  Perhaps it switched back-and-forth too frequently?  I just wasn't fond of the way the book was put together and had to force myself to go back to finish it.

Goodreads synopsis:  In this captivating novel of suspense, a wilderness guide must team up with the man who ruined her life years ago when the friend who introduced them goes missing.

     Emlyn doesn’t let herself think about the past.
     How she and her best friend, Janessa, barely speak anymore. How Tyler, the man she thought was the love of her life, left her freezing and half-dead on the side of the road three years ago.
     Her new life is simple and safe. She works as a fishing and hunting guide, spending her days in Idaho’s endless woods and scenic rivers. She lives alone in her Airstream trailer, her closest friends a handsome and kind Forest Service ranger and the community’s makeshift reverend, who took her in at her lowest.
     But when Tyler shows up with the news that Janessa is missing, Emlyn is propelled back into the world she worked so hard to forget. Janessa, it turns out, has become a social media star, documenting her #vanlife adventures with her rugged survivalist boyfriend. But she hasn’t posted lately, and when she does, it’s from a completely different location than where her caption claims to be. In spite of their fractured history, Emlyn knows she might be the only one with the knowledge and tracking skills to save her friend, so she reluctantly teams up with Tyler. As the two trace Janessa’s path through miles of wild country, Emlyn can’t deny there’s still chemistry crackling between them. But the deeper they press into the wilderness, the more she begins to suspect that a darker truth lies in the woods―and that Janessa isn’t the only one in danger.
      Poignant, suspenseful, and unforgettable, THE NATURE OF DISAPPEARING explores what it takes to start over―and the cost of letting the past pull you back in.

9. The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

listened on Libby

376 pgs. (11:21)

2021
Adult Historical Fiction - WWII
Finished 2/22/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.25
My rating: 4.25
Setting: 1920s - 1944 Poland, woods

My comments: Set in a huge forest in Poland, mostly in the 1940s during World War II, a young girl is kidnapped by an old lady and raised in the forest learning survival skills, languages, Jewish prayers and customs until she is 21 and on her own.  She meets, helps, and guides a small group of Jewish refugees fleeing from their ghetto when everyone except them has been murdered by the Germans.  This tells the story of this girl and the people she saves and helps and loves.  It's an incredible survival story with a little bit of suspended belief here and there.  Good storytelling.

Goodreads synopsis:  The New York Times bestselling author of the The Book of Lost Names returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis—until a secret from her past threatens everything.

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest—and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.

Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, and suffused with the journey-from-the-wilderness elements that made Where the Crawdads Sing a worldwide phenomenon, The Forest of Vanishing Stars is a heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel.

67. These Silent Woods - Kimi Cunningham Grant

listened on Audible

2021
275 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 9/21/2023 
Goodreads rating: 4.10
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary - in the middle of the woods off a long, private dirt road, on the edge of a National Forest....I'm thinking somewhere in remote PA

My comments: This is one of the best books I've read in a long while.  I loved every beautiful word, the plt, the complex characters, and the very special setting...all the details.  It was almost like I'be been waiting for the story with these kinds of details - living alone in the wodds on your own (Cooper is with his 8-year old daughter) surviving, enjoying nature and the birds, and loving your kid.  It was the details that really made it for me, as well as the brief flashbacks that explained what had happened to Cooper to bring him to this place.  So well done.  And the HEA that I would have never imagined.   Loved it.

Goodreads synopsis:   No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her—and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.

The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper's old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn't show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred—and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding—or finally face the sins of his past.

Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.

8. Alone by Megan E. Freeman

Read on Kindle - it was in verse 

2021

404 pgs.
Middle grades/survival CRF
Finished 1/28/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary-ish small town Colorado

My comments: A beautifully written novel in verse  Gorgeous words.  And an incredible story. I so wish there had been an additional five pages so that we could hear what had happened to her parents for the past three years.  Three years all alone in a deserted and abandoned Colorado town...at 12 years old, trusting yourself to figure out how to survive!  Wow!  I can't imagine kids not enjoying this, and I can't wait to begin reading it aloud to my fifth graders.

Goodreads synopsis:  When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She’s alone—left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned.

With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.

As months pass, she escapes natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie’s most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day. Can Maddie’s stubborn will to survive carry her through the most frightening experience of her life?

110. The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park

listened on Chirp
narrated by Kate Rudd & Raymond Lee
Unabridged audio (7:18)
2020
336 pgs.
YA RomCom
Finished 7/28/2020
Goodreads rating: 3.44 - 477 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: contemporary America

First line/s: "I'd recited this blah script more than 50 times."

My comments: A very cute story about a super-intelligent Korean senior and the rich-girl actress senior from another school that meet as employees in a zombie escape room.  Bullies and crappy fathers, cute five-year-old sisters and a yearning for the future all come together in a story for a quick and easy read.  Nothing new, but a fun listen.  

Goodreads synopsis:  Nate Jae-Woo Kim wants to be rich. When one of his classmates offers Nate a ridiculous amount of money to commit grade fraud, he knows that taking the windfall would help support his prideful Korean family, but is compromising his integrity worth it?

          Luck comes in the form of Kate Anderson, Nate’s colleague at the zombie-themed escape room where he works. She approaches Nate with a plan: a local tech company is hosting a weekend-long survivalist competition with a huge cash prize. It could solve all of Nate’s problems, and Kate needs the money too.
          If the two of them team up, Nate has a true shot at winning the grand prize. But the real challenge? Making through the weekend with his heart intact…

83. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Listened to Audio on Libby, borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Yareli Arizmendi
Unabridged audio (16:43)
2020 Flatiron Books
400 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 5/23/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.32 - 76,513 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Acapulco, Mexico, Nogales and north through the desert to Tucson

First line/s:  "One of the very first bullets comes in through the open window above the toilet where Luca is standing."

My comments:  This is an amazing, powerful book.  It tells the story of a mother and her eight-year old son fleeing from certain death after her husband and 14 other family members - including her mother =  were murdered by the cartel in Acapulco.  Their harrowing adventure is unimaginable ... brave, incredibly scary, and sad.  It's hard to believe and hard to imagine how the atrocities described in this book can possibly be happening in our world RIGHT NOW.  Incredible thoughtful, lovely writing.  And the narrator was just perfect, spot on, with a lovely Spanish accent, pronouncing everything not only with the perfect accent but with the right emphasis on letters that are different than English.  Wow, just wow.  Highly recommended must-read for anyone and everyone. 

Goodreads synopsis:  

17. Freefall by Jessica Barry

listened to on Audible
narrated by Hilary Huber, Karissa Vacker, and MacLeod Andrews
Unabridged audio (12:03)
2019, Harper
368 pgs.
Adult CRF/Survival/Mystery
Finished 1/25/2020
Goodreads rating: 3.77 - 6212 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Colorado rockies and midcoast Maine

First line/s: "Breathe.  Breathe.  My eyes open.  A flock of birds stare down before taking flight.  I survived."

My comments:  I love the way this story went back and forth between mother and daughter dealing with the same horrendous situation.  Even though I guessed from early on most of the mysteries of the story - once you've read a few of these kind of thrillers you can guess that sort of thing - it was put together really well and was exciting.  I could easily put myself in the place of the two major characters, mother and daughter, and all the things that brought them to this point in their lives.  I particularly related to the mother, who lost her husband to cancer two years previously and misses him horribly.

Goodreads synopsis:  A propulsive debut novel with the intensity of Luckiest Girl Alive and Before the Fall, about a young woman determined to survive and a mother determined to find her.
          When your life is a lie, the truth can kill you   

          When her fiancé’s private plane crashes in the Colorado Rockies, Allison Carpenter miraculously survives. But the fight for her life is just beginning. For years, Allison has been living with a terrible secret, a shocking truth that powerful men will kill to keep buried. If they know she’s alive, they will come for her. She must make it home.
          In the small community of Owl Creek, Maine, Maggie Carpenter learns that her only child is presumed dead. But authorities have not recovered her body—giving Maggie a shred of hope. She, too, harbors a shameful secret: she hasn’t communicated with her daughter in two years, since a family tragedy drove Allison away. Maggie doesn’t know anything about her daughter’s life now—not even that she was engaged to wealthy pharmaceutical CEO Ben Gardner, or why she was on a private plane.
          As Allison struggles across the treacherous mountain wilderness, Maggie embarks on a desperate search for answers. Immersing herself in Allison’s life, she discovers a sleek socialite hiding dark secrets. What was Allison running from—and can Maggie uncover the truth in time to save her?
          Told from the perspectives of a mother and daughter separated by distance but united by an unbreakable bond, Freefall is a riveting debut novel about two tenacious women overcoming unimaginable obstacles to protect themselves and those they love.

99. Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia

listened to Audio, borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Patricia Rodriguez
Unabridged audio (9:56)
2018/Atria Emily Bestler Books
352 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 10/13/2019
Goodreads rating:  3.60 - 3640 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: Contemporary Minnesota

First line/s: "By the time the boy in ward four attached me, I'd already nicknamed him "the Lost One" in my head."

My comments:  Set mostly in a mental hospital, this story is the tale of two young people and the mental legacies they receive from their parents.  As their stories begin to intermingle, my mind was in a constant state of "what would I do in this situation?"  I was quite caught up in the story. 

Goodreads synopsis:  From the author of the “compelling” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) and critically acclaimed Everything You Want Me to Be, a riveting and suspenseful thriller about the mysterious disappearance of a boy and his stunning return ten years later.
          There is a place in Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests called the Boundary Waters. Ten years ago a man and his son trekked into this wilderness and never returned.
          Search teams found their campsite ravaged by what looked like a bear. They were presumed dead until a decade later...the son appeared. Discovered while ransacking an outfitter store, he was violent and uncommunicative and sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with their high-profile patient. No matter how she tries, however, he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last ten years of his life
          But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she’s drawn closer to this enigmatic boy who is no longer a boy, she’ll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world.

89. The Line Between by Tosca Lee

Listened to the audio via CHIRP
read by Cassandra Campbell
Unabridged audio (10:07)
2019, Howard Books
389 pgs.
Adult Dystopia
Finished 9/16/19
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 1373 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting: Dystopian US/Colorado mid-country area, some on-the-road

First line/s: "The farmer moved into the woods looking for his pigs."

My comments:  This contemporary dystopian thriller set in a cult enclave and the area between Iowa and Colorado is an excellent thriller with the range of unsettling events between a religious cult and the end of the world being brought about by a deadly flue - quick death with no cure.  The protagonist, Wynter, was one pretty cool, strong, smart female.  Couldn't put it down.
     The sequel to this book, which comes out at the end of thew week, believe it or not, sounds like another really tnese ride.  I think I'm gonna have to wait awhile to get over this one before I read that one!

Goodreads synopsis:  In this frighteningly believable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee, an extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.
          When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.
          As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.
         Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.
          Filled with action, conspiracy, romance, and questions of whom—and what—to believe, THE LINE BETWEEN is a high-octane story of survival and love in a world on the brink of madness.

49. Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanan

read on my iPhone
2017 Knopf
320 pgs.
YA CRF/Survival
Finished  June 6, 2018
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 966 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary southern Utah desert

First line/s:  " 'Wren...'
     My name is floating around me.  Bounding on the clouds in my mind.
     'Wren, wake up Wren.....'
     Everything's cocoony.  Drifty.  The clouds are so soft."

My comments:  What a story!

I can’t decide what the best part of this book was, but I know I really enjoyed all its “layers,” the way it unfolded, how the past was revealed in bits and pieces.  And it was a truly believable story, both the bad stuff and the good stuff.  Setting and description – wonderful. Characterization – also wonderful, getting to know the protagonist and all the side characters was pitch perfect. Plot – mesmerizing.And as much as I would love to know exactly what happens next, I’m pretty sure it’s already accurately represented in my mind. There should be more books like this. And lastly, I’m really, really grateful that this book had a FEMALE protagonist.

Goodreads synopsis: 3:47 a.m. That's when they come for Wren Clemens. She's hustled out of her house and into a waiting car, then a plane, and then taken on a forced march into the desert. This is what happens to kids who've gone so far off the rails, their parents don't know what to do with them any more. This is wilderness therapy camp. 
          The Wren who arrives in the Utah desert is angry and bitter, and blaming everyone but herself. But angry can't put up a tent. And bitter won't start a fire. Wren's going to have to admit she needs help if she's going to survive.
          In her most incisive and insightful book yet, beloved author Wendelin Van Draanen's offers a remarkable portrait of a girl who too a wrong turn and got lost--but who may be able to find her way back again in the vast, harsh desert. 

51. Outage by Ellisa Barr

Powerless Nation #1
read on my iPhone
2014 Parker Heritage Press
218 pgs.
YA CRF/Dystopia
Finished
Goodreads rating:  3.81 - 458 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: contemporary rural Washington state

First line/s:  "Dee sat outside the farmhouse and peeled slivers of paint from the old porch swing."

My comments:  A survival story, and a believable one, for the most part. Definitely entertaining, I felt like I was watching this story. Not necessarily living it like other stories, but intensely observing. The only character you really get to know is the protagonist, Dee, because you get inside her head. Near the beginning you discover that one of the characters is part of a Mormon family, but to my relief and delight the book never gets preachy or religious. I've watched enough of the new tv shows about post-apocalyptic survival, so there was nothing particularly surprising happening, but the descriptions and panic and planning and problem-solving kept me interest from beginning to end.  

Goodreads synopsis: When fifteen-year-old Dee is left at her grandpa's farm in rural Washington, she thinks life is over. She may be right.
          A high-tech electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack destroys the country's power and communication grids, and sends the U.S. hurtling back to the Dark Ages. Can Dee learn to survive without the basics: electricity, clean water... even her cell phone?
          The chaos caused by the EMP isn't her only problem. A sinister plot by a corrupt official threatens Dee and all she holds dear. She will have to fight if she wants to survive in this hostile new world.
          Written for all fans who love apocalypse stories, Outage is a Young Adult novel of survival with a hint of romance and a lot of action-adventure.

72. The Poet's Dog by Patricia MacLachlan

Library Book
2016, Katherine Tegen Books
96 pgs.
Middle Grades CRF w/a touch of magical fantasy
Finished 12/22/16
Goodreads rating: 4/03 - 740 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting:   Contemporary winter, somewhere in the USA where it snows

First line/s:  "I found the boy at dusk.  The blizzard was fierce, and it would soon be dark."

My comments:  A very sweet, gentle story, told as though a dog could really and truly converse with humans; humans who love poetry and dogs.

Goodreads synopsis:  From Newbery Medal winner Patricia MacLachlan comes a poignant story about two children, a poet, and a dog and how they help one another survive loss and recapture love. "Just what I needed," raves Brightly.com. "It's a heart-warming story of loss and love that filled me with hope for a better future and renewed my belief in good."
          Teddy is a gifted dog. Raised in a cabin by a poet named Sylvan, he grew up listening to sonnets read aloud and the comforting clicking of a keyboard. Although Teddy understands words, Sylvan always told him there are only two kinds of people in the world who can hear Teddy speak: poets and children.
          Then one day Teddy learns that Sylvan was right. When Teddy finds Nickel and Flora trapped in a snowstorm, he tells them that he will bring them home—and they understand him. The children are afraid of the howling wind, but not of Teddy’s words. They follow him to a cabin in the woods, where the dog used to live with Sylvan . . . only now his owner is gone.
          As they hole up in the cabin for shelter, Teddy is flooded with memories of Sylvan. What will Teddy do when his new friends go home? Can they help one another find what they have lost?

MOVIE - Hunt for the Wildepeople

PG-13 (1:21)

Limited release 6/24/16

Sunday, 7/24 at Midtown Cinema in Harrisburg

RT Critic:  99  Audience:  92
Critic's Consensus:  Critics Consensus: The charmingly offbeat Hunt for the Wilderpeople unites a solid cast, a talented filmmaker, and a poignant, funny, deeply affecting message.

Cag:  5/Loved it

Directed by Taika Waititi

Piki Films

Based on the book by

Sam Neill

My comments:  This was a wonderful movie, correctly rated by Rotten Tomatoes and all the other reviews I've read. Set in "the bush" of New Zealand, it tells the story of how power put in the wrong hands can go dreadfully awry and that you definitely cannot judge a book by its cover.  When a 13 year old overweight boy is fostered by a loving woman and her grumpy husband way in the middle-of=nowhere-New Zealand, an instant bond forms between the boy and the woman (she has the boy call her "auntie").  Then, in order to set in motion the craziness that follows, tragedy has to strike.  The rest of the film is about how "uncle" (Sam &&&&) and &&&&&& take off into the bush to avoid the law, while bonding and hunting and figuring out how to stay alive.  So much humor and well-meaning in this excellent film!  You always know that the outcome is going to be a good one, too!

RT Summary:  Raised on hip-hop and foster care, defiant city kid Ricky gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside. He quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family: the loving Aunt Bella, the cantankerous Uncle Hec, and dog Tupac. When a tragedy strikes that threatens to ship Ricky to another home, both he and Hec go on the run in the bush. As a national manhunt ensues, the newly branded outlaws must face their options: go out in a blaze of glory or overcome their differences and survive as a family. Equal parts road comedy and rousing adventure story, director Taika Waititi (WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, upcoming THOR: RAGNORAK) masterfully weaves lively humor with emotionally honest performances by Sam Neill and Julian Dennison. A hilarious, touching crowd-pleaser, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE reminds us about the journey that growing up is (at any age) and those who help us along the way.

11. Monument 14 - Emmy Laybourne

#1 in the Monument 14 Trilogy

2012 Square Fish (Feiwel & Friends) a branch of Macmillan

294 pgs. (plus 40+ afterwards)

YA Dystopian Fantasy

Finished 2/11/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.84 (6,000+ ratings)

My Rating:  4.5  Really liked it a lot - super entertaining

TPPL

Setting: 2024 Monument, Colorado - just outside Colorado Springs

1^st paragraph:  "Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus.  She can see it coming down the street.  You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her.  You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother.  Of course not - you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner."

My comments:  :It's been a long time since I read a book in one (long) sitting.  But this one grabbed me right from the start and I was totally entertained until the last page.  Fourteen kids trapped in a superstore while the air outside is filled with all sorts of nasty chemicals that affect them in different ways. Crazies trying to force themselves in.  Survival.  A bully.  A couple of jocks.  A nerd.  A reader. A hottie.  A techie.  A non-English speaker.  A Bible-thumper.  A loudmouth know-it-all.  A couple of sweeties.  All ranging in ages from 5 to 17.  All told in the voice of one of the high-schoolers, an imperfect(yay!), though thoughtful young man.  However, the added-on 40+ pages at the end were totally unnecessary. This is a GREAT story for a YA reluctant reader!

Goodreads Review  Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.   In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.

36. Year of No Rain - Alice Mead

For: Middle Grades
Dell Yearling/Random House, 2003
130 pgs.
RL 4.5, ages 9-12
Rating: perfect for my 4th grade Africa Unit
Dedication: For the children of South Sudan

It is 1999. Stephen Majok's life is irrevocably changed when his southern Sudan village is attacked, cows and relief food stolen, and most people killed. Stephen had been sent to hide in the woods, and returns to find his mother dead and his older sister gone. No one is left, the food has all been stolen, the rope to the well is gone so water is unavailable, everything seems useless. So Stephen and his two friends set off for Kenya, or at least for somewhere they can find food and shelter.

This is the story of 10-year-old Stephen's journey. Trying to find water, protecting themselves from lions, hiding from trucks and planes that transport soldiers, and even contracting malaria are some of the hazards of this new life. The reader gets a feel for Sudan - its way of life, its landscape, and some customs of the Dinka people. It's somewhat adventurous, and incredibly difficult to imagine. It's real...and it's contemporary. It's happening now, and kids can learn about Africa as well as current events. A tough topic.

Yes the mother dies, but it is not too graphic..."He ducked his head and entered and saw immediately that his mother was there, dead. Keeping his eyes averted, he quickly covered her with a straw mat."

I think Alice Mead did a good job.