Details:
- author: Dusti Bowling
- full title: Across the Desert
- narrator: Stacy Gonzalez
- genre: middle-grade
- topics: #adventure #explorer #aviator #addiction
- publisher: Tantor Audio
- publish date: 29.03.2022
- timing: 6:13:00
My Rating of the Audiobook:
- content: 💙💙💙💙
- narration: 💙💙💙💙💙
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| Goodreads |
Excerpt from the Book:
Figuring out where Addie flies has been fun. It makes me feel like Marie Tharp, who mapped the ocean floor, or Kira Shingareva, who mapped the moon. Alamo Lake isn't exactly the moon, but it's pretty cool to discover something, even if it's something small. Even if I'm not the first person to discover it.
But what I really wish is that I could be like Eva Dickson, the first woman to drive a car across the Sahara. Eva was also an aviator, like Addie. If I had a plane or a car or even a motorcycle (and if I wasn't twelve and could drive and maybe had some money and food and a GPS and stuff like that), I'd travel to Alamo Lake and explore the whole area where Addie flies.
My life is so filled with If I hads that it sometimes feels like I'm drowning in them.
My Thoughts:
Twelve-year-old Jolene likes to escape her troubled life by going to the library and watching a live stream of Addie flying an ultralight plane through the desert. Her mother is an addict, and she has no friends since her only friend moved away. After she sees her online friend Addie crash her ultralight plane in the middle of the desert, Jolene is determined to save her. A courageous journey where Jolene learns that this act of bravery was not as simple as she thought. But on the way, she meets a new friend and finds hope.
Maybe a bit unbelievable adventure, but, hey, this is a middle-grade book. On the other hand, I can clearly picture a twelve-year-old kid thinking like that and making similar decisions.
The narration by Stacy Gonzalez is excellent for a middle-grade adventure book.
To conclude, kids will enjoy this book. Although, I would appreciate it more if it would cover more online safety.
About the Author:
DUSTI BOWLING is the award-winning, bestselling author of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus, 24 Hours in Nowhere, The Canyon's Edge, and the forthcoming Across the Desert and Aven Green chapter book series.
Dusti's books have won the Reading the West Award, the Sakura Medal, a Golden Kite Honor, the William Allen White Children's Book Award, and have been nominated for over thirty state awards. Her books are Junior Library Guild Selections and have been named best books of the year by the Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bank Street College of Education, A Mighty Girl, Shelf Awareness, and many more.
Dusti currently lives in New River, Arizona with her husband, three daughters, a dozen tarantulas, a gopher snake named Burrito, a king snake name Death Noodle, and a cockatiel named Gandalf the Grey.
