Alexander Yates was born in Haiti and grew up in Mexico, Bolivia, and the Phillipines. He is the author of the critically acclaimed adult novel Moondogs and his debut YA novel, The Winter Place. He lives with his wife in Hanoi, Vietnam. One of the author's top ten wilderness adventures, as shared at the Guardian:Wilderness by Roddy DoyleRead about the other entries on the list.
Beyond having a title that makes it perfectly suited for this list, Wilderness lands at the intersection of two of my favorite things - the winter forests of Finland, and the fiction of Roddy Doyle. At once a family storyand an adventure in the snowbound woods, Doyle’s novel follows three children navigating very different wild spaces. Brothers Tom and Johnny have the more straightforward adventure, racing through the woods of Lapland on dogsled to rescue their mother on a winter safari gone awry. Half-sister Gráinne, on the other hand, has stayed home in Dublin to meet the mother who long since abandoned her. It’s a beautiful little novel, one that captures not only the exhilaration of the boys as they course into the darkness, but the bewildering process of growing up and coming to terms with past hurts.
--Marshal Zeringue
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