11 November 2014: THE HONEST TRUTH by Dan Gemeinhart, Scholastic Press, January 2015, 240p., ISBN: 978-0-545-66573-5
“My dog he turned to me and he said
Let’s head back to Tennessee Jed.”
-- Garcia/Hunter (1971)
“She could feel where he was heading, and her body shivered at the thought. She reached out, through the miles and the storm that wetted and shook her window; she reached out with her heart to her friend, wandering wherever he was. She could feel him, she thought. That was the kind of friendship they had. She could feel his hurt.
“‘Why?’ she asked the darkness. She knew, she thought, where he was going. The question that growled in the darkness at her was ‘Why?’
“But there were two wolves growling in the darkness. The one that growled ‘Why’ was followed by a darker, quieter growl that answered. And she liked the answer even less than she liked the question. It chased all sleep out of the room.
“She loved her friend, And she didn’t know how to help him.”
Given the number of boy-and-his-dog books I’ve read over the past half-century, I can’t be blamed for feeling a bit jaded about encountering yet another one. That’s why it’s particularly exciting to find one as moving as THE HONEST TRUTH.
Mark is a twelve-year-old from Washington State who has repeatedly faced death since age five when he was diagnosed with cancer. After being in remission for a few years Mark inadvertently finds out that he will be facing another round of treatments that he may or may not survive.
Mark’s mountain climbing grandfather had told him that he should someday climb Mt. Rainier. Faced with the possibility that it’s his last chance, Mark decides that it’s time to go. He heads off with his dog Beau just as a major storm bears down on the state.
While Mark’s disappearance is headline news, only Jessica, Mark’s best friend, has the knowledge of where he is likely headed. The story of Jess’s internal struggle between maintaining her loyalty to Mark and wanting to save his life by revealing what she knows is as intense as the story of Mark and Beau’s struggle to climb Mt. Rainier in that horrific storm.
The story alternates between Mark’s first-person life-and-death ordeal and brief chapters in the third-person revealing Jess’s internal struggle. This double-dose of tension and adventure really sets THE HONEST TRUTH apart.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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