It's Nothing to a Mountain - Hardcover

Hite, Sid

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805027696 ISBN 13: 9780805027693

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1994

Synopsis

Love, loss, and guardian angels are central to an adventure story about an unforgettable cavedweller in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains who survives everything from mudslides to loneliness. By the author of Dither Farm.

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Reviews

Grade 6-9-A story of loss and recovery, told within the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lisette and Riley, whose parents have recently died, now live with their grandparents. Unable to bear the mourners and well wishers, the boy wanders off into the woods, where he takes a fall; his life is saved by Thorpe, a runaway who has been hiding from his abusive stepfather for over a year. Meanwhile, Lisette copes with her grief by embracing the spiritual comfort of Phyllis, a family friend. Spying on the family, Thorpe develops a crush on Lisette and saves her and a visiting schoolmate from a pair of beer-drinking teenagers. As his trust in Riley increases, he reveals that his mother is in prison for shooting his stepfather. Then a hurricane hits, causing a mudslide and sealing Thorpe inside his cave-home. After a miraculous escape, he washes up in the hot springs, where he is found and healed by Phyllis. Unfortunately, an interesting story and cast of characters are interrupted constantly by an omniscient narrator's smug and superior commentary. Geological detail on the formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the events of 1969 intrude on the narrative flow and make it drag. If the majesty of the mountains, which loom prominently over the tale, diminishes the plight of the humans, then why tell the story? The resolution of Thorpe's situation and the easing of Riley and Lisette's sadness amuse them, who in all "their hundreds of millions of years...had never witnessed a more satisfying moment in time."-Alice Casey Smith, Monmouth County Library Headquarters, Manalapan, NJ
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The metaphysical atmosphere present in Hite's Dither Farm is more delicately evoked in this second novel, which also offers a cast of boldly defined characters and a great deal of adventure, including a death-defying underground journey. The year is 1969, but in the Sparkling River Valley, it could be any era. Living with her grandparents since her parents' untimely demise, Lisette Sutter ponders mysteries of life and death while her more practical brother, Riley, makes friends with a runaway boy, Thorpe, who is hiding out in a cave. As the story develops, Thorpe saves Riley's life, Riley becomes Thorpe's chief supplier of food and other necessities, and Lisette, who has only glimpsed Thorpe from a distance, becomes convinced that he is her guardian angel. Disasters strike simultaneously when Riley fails to deliver an important message, Lisette loses an invaluable memento and the entrance to Thorpe's cave is sealed by a landslide. A series of coincidences, possibly miracles, brings salvation to all characters and neatly ties together the tangled threads of the plot. Shaped by the author's philosophical digressions, archetypal renderings and appreciation for the absurd, this tale about mortality and immortality will most satisfy readers with a strong imagination and a contemplative nature. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 6-9. When Lisette and Riley Sutter's parents die suddenly, the two young teens go to live with their grandparents at the old family home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Stunned by grief, each reacts in a different way. Lisette sinks into a depression, and Riley runs off to the mountains, where the wind blows him into a treetop. He's rescued by high-school runaway Thorpe Greenwood, who extracts a promise that Riley will never reveal his whereabouts. Riley returns home with plans to learn survival skills from Thorpe. As Riley unravels the mystery of Thorpe's tangled life, Thorpe falls in love with Lisette from afar. The disjointed plot, which lacks the fine-tuning of Hite's imaginative Dither Farm (1992), resembles a poorly staged and dramatized play viewed from the back balcony; also, the obscure references to mountain prehistory tend to be distracting. In spite of those flaws, the plot pulls together swiftly at the end in a satisfying, if predictable, way as Riley agonizes over his decision to save Thorpe, and Lisette attempts to help her brother. Deborah Abbott

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805027696
• ISBN 13: 9780805027693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214