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Twelve-year-old Jolene spends every day she can at the library watching her favorite livestream: The Desert Aviator, where twelve-year-old "Addie Earhart" shares her adventures flying an ultralight plane over the desert. While watching this daring girl fly through the sky, Jolene can dream of what it would be like to fly with her, far away from her own troubled home life where her mother struggles with a narcotic addiction. And Addie, who is grieving the loss of her father, finds solace in her online conversations with Jolene, her biggest—and only—fan.
Then, one day, it all goes wrong: Addie's engine abruptly stops, and Jolene watches in helpless horror as the ultralight plummets to the ground and the video goes dark. Jolene knows that Addie won't survive long in the extreme summer desert heat. With no one to turn to for help and armed with only a hand-drawn map and a stolen cell phone, it's up to Jolene to find a way to save the Desert Aviator. Packed with adventure and heart, Across the Desert speaks to the resilience, hope, and strength within each of us.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 29, 2022 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781666170016
- File size: 179347 KB
- Duration: 06:13:38
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from September 27, 2021
In downtown Phoenix, Jolene, 12 and cued white, is watching her favorite livestream. Hosted by her virtual friend Addie Earhart, also white, who lives more than 100 miles away and with whom Jolene exchanges direct messages, the young explorer’s show helps Jolene escape from her own reality. A couple of years ago, Jolene and her mother were in a car accident that has left the latter with an Oxycodone addiction; the resulting home situation leaves Jolene isolated and hungry (“My life is so filled with If I hads that it sometimes feels like I’m drowning in them”). But then Jolene is the sole witness to Addie’s ultralight-trike crash. Capturing friendship history and mutual loss through the girls’ messages, Bowling (The Canyon’s Edge) immerses readers into Jolene’s small world, and how it slowly opens as she follows her own path, fighting against her own PTSD “car-crash feeling” and the discouragement of others, to rescue Addie and perhaps herself. Bowling’s passion for the desert and its inhabitants—as well as a personal understanding of children of adults with addictions—is clear and powerful in this tense, poignant story about the essential nature of friendship and life’s unexpected possibilities. Back matter features an author’s note. Ages 8–12.
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