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.

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 Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Erin is forced to go visit her mother, whom she has not seen in eleven months. When her bus ticket is stolen, she is forced to hitch a ride with a girl, Mae, and her brother, who has a real attitude. Their hike to a swimming hole is interrupted by a massive thunder and lightning storm that among other things strikes a mule and a horse dead. Could things get any worse? Yes! Now Erin and Mae are lost in the Sierra Nevada wilderness because Mae, panicked and confused, took off over the mountain in the wrong direction and Erin followed Mae to stop her flight. Thanks to Erin's hiking and camping trips with her very "cool" Gram, she is knowledgeable about surviving in the outdoors, but still it is not easy. Over the next five days, the girls learn about themselves and each other. Mae finds a strength and maturity that she did not know she had. Erin becomes more open about her mother's leaving the family and about seeing her mother again. The details about survival in the wilderness harkens back to Will Hobbs and Gary Paulsen books, but this time the main characters are female. The story is fast paced and interesting, and the characters are well developed and real. The novel will be a good addition to the library collection.-Susan Allen.