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Summary
Summary
An afternoon hike in the Sierra Mountains turns into a struggle for survival when two teenage girls become hopelessly lost in an electrical storm and must rely on their own wits and strength to endure.
Almost a year ago, Erin's mother Lannie suddenly left home without any explanation. Now Lannie wants to see her, but Erin feels miserable and unsure about seeing her mother again.
After ?losing? her bus ticket on the way to visit her mother, Erin hitches a ride with Mae and her older brother, Levi. Along the way, she joins the two siblings for a hike along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. When a deadly storm suddenly descends upon the mountain and lightning strikes, everyone on the crowded trails scrambles for safety and Erin and Mae become separated from the others. As the days pass, the two stranded and lost girls must rely on their own determination and skills, as well as each other, to survive.
Author Sherry Shahan's dramatic story displays perceptive insights into the conflicted hearts and minds of teenagers, as well as a thorough understanding of the natural world and technical details of mountaineering. An afterword includes details of Shahan's own harrowing alpine adventure that inspired the novel.
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-A day trip to a mountain lake turns to disaster when lightning strikes a pack mule, a mud slide kills a horse, and hikers scatter, seeking shelter. Erin, 14, leaves her new friend Levi with the injured hikers to search for his sister, Mae, who has run off-trail in the confusion. The threesome had only become acquainted that morning when Levi and Mae picked Erin up hitchhiking on their way to Chicken Spring Lake. Independent and unusually outdoor savvy, she was supposed to have been taking a bus to visit her estranged mother but lost the ticket in a restroom. Nonplussed by the dilemma, Erin goes along on the side trip before heading back home. This self-sufficient attitude serves her well in the wilds of the Sierra Nevadas where she employs survival techniques learned from her nature-loving grandmother. The level of technical detail rivals Will Hobbs's Far North (Morrow, 1996) and Gary Paulsen's Hatchet (Macmillan, 1986) as the girls cross raging rapids, care for a lost dog, and stumble upon the remains of a missing ranger. Over pine-needle campfires and meals of wild clover, trout, and miner's lettuce, Mae becomes more self-confident and Erin opens up about the mother who left her without explanation. There is a realistic rather than dramatic rescue as girls find their own way out of the woods, scavenging food from campers and waiting the night out in a shelter. Erin resolves her internal conflict as well, leaving the door open for a mother-daughter reconciliation. A great addition to the adventure-survival genre.-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Erin joins some teenagers on a hike in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The hike becomes a harrowing exercise in survival and a chance for Erin to rethink her expectations of the mother who deserted her. Although the plot and its outcome will be familiar to readers of survival fiction, the details of place are strong. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
