Children's Fiction Orphans & Foster Homes
The Mountain That Walked
- Publisher
- Orca Book Publishers
- Initial publish date
- May 2005
- Category
- Orphans & Foster Homes, Post-Confederation (1867-), Friendship
- Recommended Age
- 9 to 12
- Recommended Grade
- 4 to 7
- Recommended Reading age
- 9 to 12
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781551433929
- Publish Date
- May 2005
- List Price
- $9.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781554695102
- Publish Date
- May 2005
- List Price
- $12.99
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Where to buy it
Description
The year is 1903, and Charlie Sutherland, a sixteen-year-old orphan, is on the run. Three years earlier, he was sent by Dr. Barnardo's Home in England to work on the remote Alberta homestead of Albert and Buck Brooks. Charlie has been treated poorly by the two brothers, but he has endured. However, when Albert dies under curious circumstances, and Buck accuses him of murder, Charlie has no choice but to run. He ends up in Frank, a coal-mining town in the Rocky Mountains. Once in Frank, Charlie finally finds friendship and a sense of belonging and self-worth--emotional qualities that had eluded him as a mere "Home boy." His new best friend is another English boy, who has recently received the deed to a homestead and is working to save for supplies. Things change dramatically, however, when--as the local aboriginals have for centuries predicted it would--the mountain walks. In this true event of April 29, 1903, Turtle Mountain collapses, burying a portion of the town. What Charlie does next is determined by the lessons he's learned from those he's become close to, the hard-working immigrants and colorful Canadians who struggled against all odds to populate the West.
About the author
Katherine Holubitsky's first novel, Alone at Ninety Foot, (Orca), won the CLA Book of the Year for Young Adults and the IODE Violet Downey Book Award. She has also written Last Summer in Agatha, The Hippie House and The Mountain That Walked, all published by Orca. Katherine lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Excerpt: The Mountain That Walked (by (author) Katherine Holubitsky)
I'm not ten feet from the stoop when my foot runs aground on something unfamiliar and I stumble. I manage to keep my balance, but what's in the pot splashes into the snow. In the thin morning light, I stare at the snow and the yellow patch where the liquid is trickling into it. Something black lies beneath. I rub the spot with my foot. It's a boot—I recognize it as belonging to Albert Brooks.
