The Skeleton Tree
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A modern-day adventure and classic in the making, in the vein of The Call of the Wild, Hatchet, and The Cay, by award-winning author Iain Lawrence.
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Less than forty-eight hours after twelve-year-old Chris sets off on a sailing trip down the Alaskan coast with his uncle, their boat sinks. The only survivors are Chris and a boy named Frank, who hates Chris immediately. Chris and Frank have no radio, no flares, no food. Suddenly, they’ve got to forage, fish, and scavenge the shore for supplies. Chris likes the company of a curious, friendly raven more than he likes the prickly Frank. But the boys have to get along if they want to survive.
Because as the days get colder and the salmon migration ends, survival will take more than sheer force of will. Eventually, in the wilderness of Alaska, the boys discover an improbable bond—and the compassion that might truly be the path to rescue.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The only thing Chris and Frank have in common is that they both know Jack, Chris's daredevil uncle, who wants to take the boys on an adventure a year after Chris's father dies. But Uncle Jack's plan to sail from Alaska to Canada turns treacherous during a storm. Jack is killed, and the boys are stranded on the untamed Alaska coast. From the outset, Frank doesn't seem to like Chris, but they have to work together combatting hunger, cold, bears, and wolves to stay alive. During the weeks that follow, Frank's fears, resentments, and traumas come to light, and Chris discovers a secret that will bond them forever. Fans of Hatchet and Lord of the Flies will be drawn to this harrowing survival story from Lawrence (The Winter Pony), which offers psychological suspense and action in equal measure. The boys' exploration of rugged territory and the mysterious "skeleton tree"with coffins in its branches neatly parallels their individual quests to make sense of recent losses and the lives they have left behind. Ages 8 12.
