The threat of two escaped convicts and a missing friend lead Lizzie on a harrowing journey through the wilds of the Adirondacks in this stunning novel from National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart.
Thirteen-year-old Lizzie’s favorite place in the world is her uncle’s cabin. Uncle Davy’s renovated schoolhouse cabin, filled with antiques and on the edge of the Adirondacks, disconnected from the rest of the world, is like something out of a fairy tale. And an escape from reality is exactly what Lizzie needs. Life hasn’t been easy for Lizzie lately. Her father abandoned their family, leaving Lizzie with her oftentimes irresponsible mother. Now, her mom has cancer and being unable to care for Lizzie during her chemotherapy, Mom asks her where she’d like to spend the summer. The answer is simple: Uncle Davy’s cabin.
Lizzie loves her uncle’s home for many reasons, but the main one is Matias, Uncle Davy’s neighbor and Lizzie’s best friend. Matias has proportionate dwarfism, but that doesn’t stop him and Lizzie from wandering in the woods. Every day they go to their favorite nook where Matias paints with watercolors and Lizzie writes. Until one day when Matias never arrives.
When news breaks about two escaped convicts from the nearby prison, Lizzie fears the worst. And when Uncle Davy goes missing, too, Lizzie knows she’s the only one who knows this area of woods well enough to save them. Armed with her trusted Keppy survival book, Lizzie sets out into the wilds of the Adirondacks, proving just how far she’ll go to save the people she loves.
This stunning novel from National Book Award finalist Kephart follows 13-year-old Lizzie on a harrowing journey through the wilds of the Adirondacks as she searches for her missing friend, who's been kidnapped by two escaped convicts.
“This is a victim impact statement. Offered right here, from this bed, in this room, in this house, to you.” Readers immediately learn that the victim is thirteen- year-old Lizzie, but the precise circumstances that led her to this place and the person she’s addressing are unknown. What is known is that while her mother was undergoing radiation treatment for cancer, Lizzie chose to spend the summer in the wilderness of the Adirondacks with her beloved Uncle Davy and her friend Matias, who has pituitary dwarfism. But circumstances force other choices, and the idyllic mountains hide a horror that readers reconstruct from Lizzie’s ruminations, which appear to be scattered but are in reality carefully constructed clues. In addition, there’s the complexity of each character to unpack. Davy isn’t defined solely by his near-remote existence, his estrangement from Lizzie’s mother, or his expertise in antiques, just as Matias is more than his artistic ability, his Salvadoran culture, and his medical condition. Readers must piece together these characters’ hidden strengths and weaknesses as Lizzie hints at their many parts in much the same way she foreshadows—but never until the denouement reveals precisely— the details of her ordeal. Cliffhanging chapter endings hint there’s always more
to be told, as Lizzie’s voice, alternating between stream-of-consciousness and emotional outbursts, invites readers to participate in structuring this powerful narrative.
