The Big Wander

by Will Hobbs Narrated by Ed Sala

Overview

The Big Wander is a trip 14-year-old Clay Lancaster and his older brother Mike have planned for years. It's Clay's dream to find his ex-rodeo star uncle, who quit the tour and disappeared somewhere in the vast and colorful Monument Valley. But Mike-heartbroken and unfocused after losing his girlfriend-soon heads for home. Clay, however, will not give up. He finds a job in a remote trading post, and follows a lead on his uncle's whereabouts that takes him deep into Navajo country. There he learns the ways of the tribe, the dangers of the wilderness, and discovers, just in time, the secret of his long lost uncle's fate. Best-selling young adult author Will Hobbs won an ALA Best Book Award for The Big Wander. Hobb's prose paired with Sala's perfect pacing and authentic accents will make you feel you are in the American Southwest.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Set in 1962, this good-natured chronicle of a boy's summer-long search for his uncle is jam-packed with action and a heap of fortunate coincidences. After driving around the Southwest with his older brother Mike, Clay, 14, finds himself a job at a Monument Valley trading post. When a colorful prospector makes off with Mike's truck, leaving in exchange his trusty burro, Pal, Mike hightails it home. Clay, however, remains, and is duly rewarded with a snippet of news about his uncle. Encouraged, Clay packs up Pal and heads out; he happens upon the very family of Navajos that had befriended his uncle. The next stop is Utah, where Clay plunges headlong into his first romance, a jailbreak,stet comma and a noble scheme to liberate a herd of mustangs destined for the slaughterhouse. Hobbs's evident desire to educate his readers often leads to didactic dialogue: ``You know, there's only about twenty thousand mustangs left in the whole country. The lead mare's drinking now, then the next in rank and so on. If the stallion tries to drink before all the rest are finished, the mares will run him off.'' Despite a few ungainly moments, this novel has the kind of charm that just seems to come naturally when a likable kid is put into some gorgeous countryside with a bunch of wild horses. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-- Clay Lancaster, 14, has dreamed of adventures on what he calls the Big Wander (his name for a journey without planned destinations), and finds them aplenty in this coming-of-age saga. He ends up on his own in the Southwest of 1962, without parent or older brother to rule him. Clay searches for his cowboy uncle (located in a Utah jail); befriends Navajos; and acquires a mustang, a dog, and a burro. Hobbs skillfully blends action scenes (flash flood, quicksand, and wild chases) with moments of humor and insight. Clay copes admirably with a series of incidents, although coincidence and friends' actions resolve some of his problems. He shows his stuff in tracking his way through the desert and rescuing a band of wild horses; while starry-eyed about the Wild West of John Wayne, he experiences real life pleasures and relationships, including an episode of unrequited love. Hobbs makes Clay a believable character, and creates a memorable supporting cast--even a villain with a heart of gold. Frequent references to classic Westerns, J. F. K., the Bomb, and Navajo traditions could lead readers to further investigations of these topics. --Charlene Strickland, formerly at Albuquerque Public Library , NM

From the Publisher

Booklist, starred review Enough action and humor to satisfy even the most reluctant reader.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171079857
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/30/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Clay Lancaster rolled the window down and drank in the wind and the rolling red desert, the clouds impossibly tall in Arizona's turquoise sky. He read the billboards aloud to his brother Mike at the wheel of the pickup.

PRAIRIE DOG VILLAGE!
GENUINE INDIAN MOCCASINS!
LIVE TWO-HEADED CALF!

Clay had never seen so many billboards in his life as lined Route 66. Dozens, even hundreds, advertised the same few roadside attractions. You started seeing the signs hundreds of miles away and you came to think of them as companions on this thin strip through the big emptiness.

Ahead, a long-promised trading post appeared on the red horizon, with a dozen tepees circling a cluster of gift shops disguised as a fort.

"Chief Yellowhorse Village coming up, Mike. Hey, that last sign said something about rattlers. Slow down."

"Slow down -- that's a good one, his brother Mike said with a smile, coming a bit out of the daze he'd been in ever since they left Seattle. "Clay, we could've -raced a tortoise into Arizona and lost."

"C'mon, Mike, your Studebaker has character." To Clay everything about their trip was perfect, even the way the truck backfired going down the hills. They were on the loose at last and four days into the Big Wander.

"These places are all phony as wooden nickels," Mike scoffed. "The Indians in the desert didn't live in tepees."

"There it is again -- BABY RATTLERS -- hey, Mike, let'stake a look at 'em! I bet it's time to check the oil again anyway."

It was always time to check the oil. They'd left a plume of blue smoke behind them all the way down through Washington State and Oregon and practically the whole length of California. The truck was new, bought especially for this summer out of Mike's savings for seventy-five dollars. Well, not exactly new, Clay thought, but new for them. Its original red showed in places, but mostly you'd have to say it looked rusty, which came close to matching the color of the desert and seemed a lucky thing at the moment. Another lucky thing about the truck was its age, Clay thought, it being a '48 model, same as me, and that makes us both fourteen.

They walked onto the wooden porch of the trading post and Clay's eyes looked past the cigar store Indian to the footlocker with BABY RATTLERS spelled out large. As Clay knelt and cautiously began to lift the lid, a pair of little boys came streaming out of a station wagon and bounded onto the porch, their parents trying in vain to call them back. Twins, Clay figured. They froze big-eyed as Clay peered through the opening into the box. "These rattlers are a little different from the ones back home," he reported to Mike. "Maybe they're desert rattlers."

A little smile came to Clay's face as he looked from his brother to the buzz-headed twins, crowding as close as they dared, deliciously terrified and hair-triggered to run. Their older sister was stepping onto the porch, curious to find out what was going on.

Careful, Mike warned.

Clay's right hand started into the box. The blond girl and her little brothers gasped.

"Clay!" Mike shouted.

"I think I can get one behind the head," Clay said calmly, and his arm disappeared inside the box. The twins took two steps back and eyed their escape routes. Even Mike backed up a little.

Clay reached inside, carefully, carefully. Suddenly it wasn't so easy for anyone to tell what had happened, with all the rattling and commotion and Clay's elbow flying back. But the sudden look of terror on his face said it all -- he'd been bitten!

Now, Clay thought, crying out in pain and throwing the lid open, springing in one motion on the twins with two of the rattlers in his right hand. The boys screamed and fell back against their sister and their parents who were backpedaling nearly as fast, until they all spied the baby rattles in Clay's hand -- a pink one and a blue one.

"Hey," one of the twins exclaimed, "those are rattles, not rattlers!"

By now everyone was laughing with relief. The twins took the rattles from Clay's hand, wanting to hold the "snakes" too and shake them menacingly. Clay was much more aware of their sister, who looked to be about his age. She was watching him, and she was smiling. Her glistening hair, curling into a flip at her shoulders, shone about as bright as the sun.

"Are you fellas on your own?" their father inquired. Clay had never met a Texan before, but he recognized the accent from the movies.

"We sure are," he answered proudly. "My name's Clay and this is my big brother Mike and we're on the loose."

Both parents looked a little confused. "You're on the loose, the mother repeated, sounding a little concerned.

Mike was standing back and seemed to be enjoying this. Clay thought he'd better explain. "We've been talking about a big trip for a long time, just the two of us, for the summer after Mike graduated. He's starting college in the fall -- at the California Institute of Technology,"

The man whistled and raised his eyebrows. "Good school."

"Where're y'all from?" the girl he liked asked cheerfully. Her hair was blonder than blond. To his amazement, she was speaking to him.

"Seattle, " Clay answered, enchanted with her accent and hair and everything about her. She was shining that warm, sweet smile on him.

She must be wearing perfume, he thought, and as they started to talk he could feel its delicate scent wafting through his nostrils and overcoming his brain, making him dizzy. Tropical flowers, that's what it is. Like they have in Hawaii.

The Big Wander. Copyright © by Will Hobbs. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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