Reaching High

Thirteen year-old Sam Douglas doesn't like school much. He likes working on the family farm (especially when his father lets him drive the tractor), fishing with his best friend Albert, and hunting squirrels and deer. Sam dreams of flying and hopes one day to be an air force pilot. In this compelling coming-of-age story, we trace young Sam through the days as spring ripens into summer, when strange things start to occur in the neighborhood. First the local doctor's wife dies under suspicious circumstances then Albert's father is killed by a snakebite. But perhaps most disturbing, just as they enter the Thanksgiving season, Albert disappears without a trace. Could the series of sinister events be connected with Mylan, the stranger who repeatedly appears in unexpected places? Author Joe Massey authentically evokes life in a rural southern community in this richly textured and consistently engaging narrative. Sam is an appealing, vividly three-dimensional character who speaks in a voice full of folksy eloquence and earthy candor in this tale of a young man's awakening.