Books: Young Teen

Walker’s Crossing

Ryan Walker is a seventh grade boy who lives on a ranch in rural Wyoming. All Ryan wants is to be a cowboy for Saddlebow Ranch, where his father is the foreman. Ryan’s good-for-nothing 22-year old brother, Gil, becomes involved with the Mountain Patriots Association, a group formed to drive out all “minorities” from the area.

Ryan’s best friend, Matt, becomes a junior member of the Patriots and starts spreading racial propaganda around their junior high school. Then a friend’s father is killed in a helicopter crash caused by the Patriots, and Ryan tries to help his friend deal with the loss of his father. Ryan’s brother, Gil, is put in jail.

Ryan remains true to his friends, despite ridicule from others, and finds an inner strength he did not know he possessed. At the end of the story, he is offered that job at Saddlebow – and Ryan learns that honesty, integrity and trust win over hatred and ignorance.

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