One Wrong Step
Three years after his mother died while he and his father were mountain climbing, fifteen-year-old Atlas Wade is now accompanying his father, who is headed to the summit of Mt. Everest. Atlas, however, will have to remain at Advanced Base Camp while his father and a half-dozen other men try to be the first to the top. It’s 1939, war has broken out in Europe, and the mountain is littered with the bodies of those who died along the way, including Atlas’s fellow Englishman George Mallory. Of course, much goes wrong, including an injury to Chodak, their guide, due to the carelessness of another team member who Atlas suspects is a Nazi spy. At the base camp where he’s supposed to stay, Atlas meets American teen Maddie Pierson and her father, who decides to join the party up the mountain. When there’s an avalanche, radio transmission goes silent, and Chodak cannot help, the two teenagers embark on a dangerous journey alone up the mountain to rescue their fathers and the rest of the team.
Nielsen is a master of plot and pacing, and this page-turning adventure is no exception. Cliffhangers are both literal and figurative in a narrative that places the reader on the mountain’s snow- and windswept slopes. The friction between Atlas and Maddie despite their interdependence adds tension and leads to growth as Atlas comes to realize why his father took him mountain climbing rather than keeping him at the bedside of his dying mother. While the idea of two young teenagers making an often deadly mountain climb on their own may strain credulity, middle-school readers will be captivated by the characters’ journey and the wider historical context. Includes maps and author’s note. Ages 8-12.
