IT'S NOTHING TO A MOUNTAIN (Laurel-Leaf Books) - Softcover

Grade 6-9-A story of loss and recovery, told within the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lisette and Riley, whose parents have recently died, now live with their grandparents. Unable to bear the mourners and well wishers, the boy wanders off into the woods, where he takes a fall; his life is saved by Thorpe, a runaway who has been hiding from his abusive stepfather for over a year. Meanwhile, Lisette copes with her grief by embracing the spiritual comfort of Phyllis, a family friend. Spying on the family, Thorpe develops a crush on Lisette and saves her and a visiting schoolmate from a pair of beer-drinking teenagers. As his trust in Riley increases, he reveals that his mother is in prison for shooting his stepfather. Then a hurricane hits, causing a mudslide and sealing Thorpe inside his cave-home. After a miraculous escape, he washes up in the hot springs, where he is found and healed by Phyllis. Unfortunately, an interesting story and cast of characters are interrupted constantly by an omniscient narrator's smug and superior commentary. Geological detail on the formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the events of 1969 intrude on the narrative flow and make it drag. If the majesty of the mountains, which loom prominently over the tale, diminishes the plight of the humans, then why tell the story? The resolution of Thorpe's situation and the easing of Riley and Lisette's sadness amuse them, who in all "their hundreds of millions of years...had never witnessed a more satisfying moment in time."-Alice Casey Smith, Monmouth County Library Headquarters, Manalapan, NJ
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 6-9. When Lisette and Riley Sutter's parents die suddenly, the two young teens go to live with their grandparents at the old family home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Stunned by grief, each reacts in a different way. Lisette sinks into a depression, and Riley runs off to the mountains, where the wind blows him into a treetop. He's rescued by high-school runaway Thorpe Greenwood, who extracts a promise that Riley will never reveal his whereabouts. Riley returns home with plans to learn survival skills from Thorpe. As Riley unravels the mystery of Thorpe's tangled life, Thorpe falls in love with Lisette from afar. The disjointed plot, which lacks the fine-tuning of Hite's imaginative Dither Farm (1992), resembles a poorly staged and dramatized play viewed from the back balcony; also, the obscure references to mountain prehistory tend to be distracting. In spite of those flaws, the plot pulls together swiftly at the end in a satisfying, if predictable, way as Riley agonizes over his decision to save Thorpe, and Lisette attempts to help her brother. Deborah Abbott