Norman lived with his mother and step dad, but often spent weekends with his adrenaline loving father. They would go skiing or surfing and his father was always pushing him to go past his comfort zone. He and his step father didn't get along. He was always telling Norm that life constantly changed and he just had to adjust. When Norman was 11 years old he won a downhill skiing competition even though he was one of the younger participants. He and his father and his father's girlfriend were in a small airplane flying to the award ceremony when their plane crashed in the San Gabriel Mountains. Norman suddenly has to use all that both of his fathers taught him about perseverance and adaptation and to make it down the snow-covered mountain and survive.
This is a true story of an incident that actually happened to the author when he was a boy. It is a thrilling and heart pounding survival story that I think would appeal to a lot of young readers. It is, at times, hyperbolically dramatic. At first I thought that Kiely was probably the main writer, just using Ollestad's story, but when I looked up Ollestad, it turns out he is a writer, too. The book brings up a lot of questions about his two fathers' parenting styles, and also about how Norman ultimately learns to deal with the trauma of the accident. It would be a good choice for a "boys read" book club. (272 p. 2025)
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