by Lynne Rae Perkins

Imagine suddenly finding yourself in the middle of nowhere with no way to contact anyone who knows you. What would you do? When Ry steps off his train on the way to camp and then misses getting back on before it pulls away, he is a bit stunned. Things get worse when he realizes he can’t get a hold of anyone on his cell phone, and the battery is almost dead. But this is not a lonesome survival story. Ry treks into a town and happens across a number of very interesting characters, especially Del, the mechanic/handyman/poet who is possibly a little off his rocker, who help him sort through his problem. Del and Ry end up taking a lengthy, roundabout route to try to locate Ry’s grandfather, and then his parents on vacation, not to mention Del’s sweetheart. Their journey includes various forms of transportation, not excluding homemade airplanes, rickety cars, and a sailboat.

Older readers will appreciate Ry’s self-discoveries along the way, as well as his interesting and often humorous observations. (When describing his room at home, Ry notes the “decorating style he preferred was somewhere between Extreme Lived-In and Total Pit. Lair was how thought of it.”)

This is basically a survival story, even though the characters are in the midst of civilization most of the time. Teen boys who have read and enjoyed Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet or Louis Sachar’s Holes may be ready to move on to this more in-depth novel that gives you an unsettling feeling that this is something that really could possibly happen to you, “if one little thing went wrong – or, okay, a half dozen, a dozen, an unusually large number of things went wrong – and everyone went spinning off in all directions.” Thanks to my favorite professor, Anne Phillips, for recommending this title to me!

-reviewed by Jennifer