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Holt infuses the American pioneer landscape with a hint of magical realism in this intimate and epic coming-of-age tale. In 1848 Missouri, Amos Kincaid is born to Jake, a talkative trapper, and Delilah, a headstrong redhead who dies in childbirth. Delilah’s spirit follows Amos, seen by others but not by him. Passed from family to family while Jake traps, Amos leads a lonely childhood. He inherits Jake’s mystical talent for dowsing, but, like his father, he rejects it. When Amos is 13, he and Jake join an Oregon-bound wagon train. En route he experiences tragedy and romance, suffering a broken heart. It is only when faced with a critical decision that Amos claims the family he was afraid to love and accepts his dowsing fate. Drawing on such diverse themes as Manifest Destiny, personal identity and cross-cultural relationships, the author has crafted a satisfying all-ages story that hosts a dazzling array of richly realized secondary characters (including Jake’s scene-stealing second wife, Blue Owl) and flows as effortlessly as the Platte River. (map) (Historical fiction. 10-14)
