Escape Under the Forever Sky
Grade 5–8—Chafing at the restrictions of being the American ambassador's daughter, 13-year-old Lucy sneaks out to the market in Addis Ababa, is kidnapped by drug dealers, and escapes into the Ethiopian bush where she faces a pride of lions. Based on a widely circulated news story of a kidnapping and lion rescue, this unusual adventure places a reassuringly typical American teenager in an intriguingly different setting. Bored by endless rounds of official visits and restricted to the American compound when not in her elite private school, Lucy whiles away her time reading books about African wildlife, dreams of her twice-monthly visits to a game park, and schemes ways to avoid her protectors. The first-person narrative includes flashbacks that reveal something of Lucy's life prior to the kidnapping. Caught up in the suspense, readers will probably accept how much Lucy's gymnastics training and naturalist reading contribute to her survival, as well as the coincidence of her ending up at the village home of a classmate. First-time novelist Yohalem researched her story with a visit to Ethiopia and her reportage may leave readers, like Lucy, wanting to know more about that world.—Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University, MDCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.