Enchanted Runner

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

Overview

Kendall believes in magic. He can feel it when he runs. Drawn into his great-grandfather's world of secrets and sacred ceremony, Kendall discovers that the magic is linked to an ancient and mysterious life as old as the earth itself. In this dramatic and exciting story, Kendall encounters wild horses, rattlesnakes and runs a dangerous journey across the desert to save his grandfather's life even as visions from the spirit world give him the answers he seeks. Land of Enchantment Master List Pennsylvania Young Readers List Southwest Book Award Winner.Teachers Guides and Author Visits: www.kimberleygriffithslittle.co

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781494950712
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	01/08/2014
Series:	The Last Snake Runner/Enchanted Runner Series Collection , #1
Pages:	170
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.36(d)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Kimberley Griffiths Little has received accolades for her well-researched fiction. She is the author of another novel featuring Kendall, The Last Snake Runner. Kimberley has also published several books with Scholastic which have won numerous awards, such as The Whitney Award, the New Mexico Book Award, and a SCBWI Crystal Kite Finalist and been on state reading lists as well as bestsellers in the Scholastic Book Fairs: BREAKAWAY, THE HEALING SPELL, CIRCLE OF SECRETS, WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES CAME, THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES (July, 2014) and her upcoming Young Adult trilogy, FORBIDDEN, with Harpercollins (Fall, 2014). A voracious reader who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, she now lives with her three sons and her husband, a robotics engineer, in a solar adobe house along the banks of the Rio Grande. Kimberley also publishes Young Adult Romance and Paranormal under the name, Kimberley Montpetit. Paris Cravings (February, 2014). www.kimberleymontpetit.com

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-6-The summer after his mother's death, Kendall and his brother are to travel across the U.S. with their father in his 18-wheeler. The plans change suddenly when Kendall's great grandfather summons him to "Sky City," the Acoma Indian Pueblo in New Mexico. With mixed feelings, he travels to his mother's birthplace to meet her family for the first time. The boy, half Acoma and half Anglo, is a fervent runner, compelled by inexplicable "magic" to run. He has many questions about his place in the world and his mysterious compulsion. He seeks answers from the Enchanted Mesa at Acoma, hoping to find the spirit of his mother and to earn a place in the family lineage. Although details of Acoma culture are accurate, Kendall's quest is contrived, and the action is predictable and unconvincing. Attempts to infuse the plot with mysticism are largely uninspired and the story fails to evoke imagery of the setting or empathy for its characters. Readers desiring stories of Native American quests would be better served by Michael Dorris's Sees behind Trees (Hyperion, 1996).-Carolyn Stacey, Jefferson County Public Library, Golden, CO Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

An Anglo-Indian boy finds a measure of peace in the landscape of his deceased mother's childhood, and begins to understand the source of his compulsion to run. The summer after his mother's death, Kendall is sent to visit his great-grandfather, Armando, a Native American who lives on top of a mesa, in Acoma, or Sky City; it's a largely abandoned pueblo built centuries ago, overlooking the valley that lies between it and another mesa known as the Enchanted Mesa. Kendall has always been a runner, driven by some inner spirit; he learns from Armando that he is the last in a long line of Acoma runners, men who ran as part of their belief system, and who were especially revered for their bravery and stamina. The mysterious Enchanted Mesa challenges Kendall to run as he never has before, and that kindles his curiosity about his family's past and his own destiny. He begins to understand the part of his nature that he inherited from his mother, but also realizes that he will never be accepted as a true Acoman because of the Anglo blood that is his legacy from his father. Little has composed a fine coming-of-age story; she enhances it with a lot of insight into a vanishing way of life and the need to preserve it. (Fiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews