YA, 2 siblings travel across the Sahara

Only the vaguest recollections of this YA book:

Two kids -- I think, possibly, a brother & sister; definitely at least one boy -- are on some kind of trip across the desert (pretty sure it was the Sahara). Orphaned? Going to visit their family? Had been on a trip with family and somehow stranded, had to make their way back to their dad? Something kind of stressful. I think they were white kids, not native to the area. I remember a scene in which they were caught in a huge sandstorm. Kind of a survival-story feel, and also it seems like it might have been a contemporary not a historical (but I can't swear to that).

I would have read it in the late 70s, early 80s.

Any help would be much appreciated!

-- lquilter

Perhaps A Far-Off Place? Haven't read the book, though it was made into a movie and the basic details are fairly similar. Might be a starting point at any rate.

Hmm, that doesn't immediately click "yes", but there's nothing that screams "no", either -- will request from library ASAP & post back one way or the other.

It's bringing up faint echoes of Walkabout - that's in the Australian desert, but otherwise about right. I actually saw the movie rather than read the book first - and the book may have had a different name, but this one by Marshall has the same storyline. Dunno - how sure are you about the Sahara? I think there are several with kids wandering through Australia.

4> how sure are you about the Sahara? I think there are several with kids wandering through Australia.

i'm probably about 85% certain it's the sahara. i have a strong sense that it was one of the first books i'd read that piqued my curiosity about that region of the world. but my strong sense is mitigated by my knowledge that i am sometimes really wrong. i'll check into Walkabout and any others suggested.

Could it be Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle?

Many Waters has 2 boys being sent into the past and they meet Noah. (If I remember correctly.)

Yes, that's Many Waters. *Could* be what the OP is looking for, but I don't know...

If it wasn't for the fact that you mentioned that it was contemporary, I would have said it was In Desert and Wilderness by Sienkiewicz.

could it be Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing?

edited to add, o sorry, Mara and Dann is not contemporary - set in the far future instead.

def. not mara & dann. really think it was not Many Waters, because I knew all the L'engle's I read.

I'll check out the Sienkiwicz -- it doesn't seem immediately right, but it's worth a shot. I have a *sense*, only, that it was contemporary, but my memory is so vague it's not necessarily so.

thanks so much all of you! i'm still waiting for the first couple of suggestions to come in from the library.

eta: just re-reading description of many waters, and it was def. not many waters. nothing about noah or other fantastic elements -- no time travel. purely narrative realism.

It wasn't the Sienkiwicz book, but good effort.

I remembered another detail: They were introduced to camels for the first time, and there was a description of camel behavior.

Update:

So -- I think this was Camel Caravan by Arthur Catherall, which I am now requesting, and will post back.

It was definitely Camel Caravan by Arthur Catherall ... weirdly hard to find via ILL.