If there’s a more unpleasant place to live in the universe than Rattler Springs, Nevada, Dani can’t imagine it. The dusty little desert town is blazing hot and bleak, with none of the amenities Dani enjoyed back in Sea Grove, California—tall trees and the blue of the ocean. She and Linda, her mother, live in a ramshackle cabin in town because the ranch they inherited from Linda’s dead husband is six miles from town and has no electricity or running water. There’s little hope that they will ever escape Rattler Springs; they have little money to live on, and after four years, Dani has finally realized that her only chance is to run away. She promises Stormy, who depends on Dani to read to him, that he can come along. Linda has the opportunity to rent the ranch to geologists and their daughter, Pixie, and although she, Dani, and Stormy never become the “runaways” of the title, each of them makes a more important journey in the attempt. Although readers may become weary of Dani’s whining, failed plans, and belief that the desert speaks to her, this is an intriguing tale, with believable characters. Pixie, in particular, is a character worthy of a tale all her own. (Fiction. 12-14)
