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Red Fox Road

 

By Frances Greenslade
Toronto: Puffin Canada, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, 2020. Fiction.

Francie and her parents are traveling to the Grand Canyon from British Columbia, Canada, when they decide to take a shortcut given to them by their GPS. An old logging road that looks like no one ever travels down it. When they are deep in the forest, their truck hits a giant rock that causes it to stop working. Francie and her mom wait by the truck while her dad continues down the road on foot to find help. He promises that he will be back in a few hours. At first Francie is excited to put her survival skills to use, but as time goes by, Francie and her mom get more and more worried. Then after a couple of days, Francie wakes up and her mom is gone too, and has left her a note on the truck telling her to stay put. She is completely alone, in the middle of the woods. 

For those who love survival, adventure stories, this is the perfect book. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire novel, just waiting to see how everything would resolve. The details that the author included, made me feel like I was there in Francie's shoes experiencing what she was. I also loved how the author weaved wilderness survival skills into the story, making it an educational read as well as a suspenseful adventure. 

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