Wilderness (2010)

Tom and Johnny are in Lapland on a great adventure with their mother, Sandra. But in the wilderness anything can happen. Someone can be lost, and how are they to be found? Their step-sister Grainne is at home in Dublin. She knows what it is like to lose someone. Her mother left when Grainne was six. The two halves of this book are intertwined throughout the narrative, and bound with tension.

Reviewed by Grandma Bev for TeensReadToo.com

Ten-year-old Tom Griffin and his older brother, twelve-year-old Johnny, live in Dublin, Ireland, with their parents and a teenaged half-sister, Grainne. Grainne has not seen or heard from her mother since she was a baby, and now her mother is coming from America for a visit. Grainne is nervous about the visit. Will seeing her mother heal the hurt of being abandoned by this woman?

The boys' mother, Sandra, decides to take the boys somewhere else during the visit by Grainne's mother, and arranges a holiday in Finland for herself and the boys. They are going to have a grand adventure. This story is told in alternating chapters as Tom and Johnny become acquainted with sled dogs and their handler and then go off into the wilderness on an exciting dog sled ride to a remote lodge. And as Grainne nervously waits for the arrival of her birth mother.

The boys are excited about the chance to help feed and water the sled dogs, and to help with camp chores. They are having a grand time, until their mother disappears. Her lead dog is a rogue who decides to go his own way, and she becomes lost in the cold, snowy uninhabited forest. It is dark, and the sled tips over and injures Sandra. She can't get back on the sled, or get the dogs under control.

The boys decide to take a team of dogs and sled and search for their mother on their own, and they sneak out of the lodge and harness the dogs. It's dark and cold, with deep snow, and the trail is not clear, but their lead dog seems to know where he is going...or does he?

Tween readers can relate to the realistic characters and their emotions as Roddy Doyle tells this dramatic story in sparse, simple language, while keeping the tension high. With the rowdy rambunctious boys and their adventure in Finland, the frantic search for their mother, and the angst of a teenaged girl meeting the mother who abandoned her, there is something for everyone in this exciting story. ( )

This adventure that taks 2 boys and their mother into an expedition in the Artic wilderness alternates with the story of their teenage sister's reunion with the mother who left her years ago. The tale of their family covers some adult subjects such as their dad's live-in-girlfriend who the daughter has to squeeze in between when she goes to her daddy's bed and some rough language. ( )