The Passage At Moose Beach: The Wild Side Trilogy Book One

by Michael Foster Ba, Gloria Miller Allen (Other)

Overview

In the wilds of Idaho, an adventurous young girl stumbles into an alternate dimension that’s plagued by a tyrannical creature and faces a life-threatening curse as she struggles to find her way home. Eleven-year-old Alicia encounters unusual, surprising friends and terrifying enemies as she embarks on an unexpected and magical journey in nature. The story takes the reader to a land not so far from home, yet farther than imagined, perhaps another realm, that looks much like what we see around us on earth today, but nothing is what it seems. Alicia sets out on a difficult journey to discover a way home, finding compassion and friendship along the way. She meets a squirrel named Mickey, a jay named Briar, and Fiona, the enigmatic deer, who help her fight terrible foes and comes face to face with Bristleback, the fearsome mountain troll. Though Alicia and her friends help each other overcome crippling fear, can they find a way to stop “The Drying” which threatens them all? "The Passage At Moose Beach is an enchantingly magical tale about finding friends in the unlikeliest of people and working together with them to achieve your wildest dreams.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780996568364
Publisher:	Wisdom House Books
Publication date:	11/01/2018
Series:	The Wild Side Trilogy , #1
Pages:	226
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.61(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Michael Foster is an avid gamer and works full time for a major tech company. He loves to host backyard barbecues whenever possible and has a vast network of friends in many countries, especially South America where he met his wife. As a child, Michael spent long summers at his family’s cabin in Idaho, built by his maternal great-grandfather in the late 1920s. Michael’s inquisitive nature kept him out and about, always exploring. Drawing inspiration from his adventures at the cabin, many of Michael’s characters sprang from watching his wife and daughter explore his childhood stomping grounds. Gloria Miller Allen has lived in Idaho since 1974, though she spent her childhood in the Mid-West. The first job she remembers was in the Litho Art Department of Hallmark Cards headquarters in Kansas City, MO. Allen was 18 years old and learned an incredible amount about color and value contrasts in painting. After marriage, she and her husband moved to Corvallis, OR for his graduate program in Chemistry, Physics, and Math. After a Ph.D., the family of five moved to East Brunswick, New Jersey, for about five years, then to Idaho.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

Ch. 1 The Lake in the Woods

Ch. 2 Secrets To Find

Ch. 3 Stepping In

Ch. 4 A Daughter Lost

Ch. 5 Realizations

Ch. 6 The Wild Side

Ch. 7 The Drying

Ch. 8 Tasty Treats

Ch. 9 A Surprising Conversation

Ch. 10 Traveling Companions

Ch. 11 The Last Mountain

Ch. 12 Charon by Night (A Secret Shared)

Ch. 13 Journey’s End

Ch. 15 Rainsong

Ch. 16 A Beautiful Reunion

EPILOGUE

Editorial Reviews

- “In this middle-grade fantasy novel, a girl steps through a magic barrier into a new realm, where she tries to help creatures suffering from a drought…

Alicia befriends talking animals in the new world—called the “Wild Side” by its inhabitants. Mickey, a squirrel, explains that the Wild Side is suffering from “The Drying,” a drought caused by Gran’Tree, a tree so enormous that his branches block the sun and his roots suck up all the water…

Foster structures his debut novel along the archetypal lines of The Wizard of Oz… Alicia goes on a dangerous journey to Gran’Tree… Alicia does come across as an intelligent, science-minded heroine for the modern era, and the story has a fresh ecological focus.”

-Kirkus Reviews

- “Imagination and dreams is what this story is all about.” Michael Foster has written a Middle-Grade novel entitled ‘The Passage at Moose Beach’ and was illustrated by Gloria Miller Allen. This is a story about a girl named Alicia who while on a short vacation trip with her family has her own adventure. Alicia makes several real friends in finding out where she is at and making herself pay attention to her surroundings along with her new friends and building trust on the Wildside. This is a story of making connections between humans and animals and how we can learn and help each other. " Mark Graham Bookroom Reviews

- "I absolutely loved reading the book. It felt familiar, like reading a favorite fable, or following Dorothy on her journey to Oz"

- "I also like the fact that it is a girl having the adventure and using her brains."

- "I loved the choice of the theme of working together as a family, even if it is not your biological family; that family is whatever group of people you are connected to and supportive of. Having each of the characters understanding the importance of not being alone and the willingness to come together and acknowledge that what they are creating really is a family is a wonderful theme. There was definitely a nod to the theme of 'oneness with nature' or how everything in nature is connected."

- "I was blown away with the art. Each character is brought to life in a realistic way, matching the descriptions in the text, while the natural environment is both beautiful and frightening."

- When I started I did not realize how fun that it would be, Moose Beach is very fun and adventurous.

From the Publisher

2018-12-19

In this middle-grade fantasy novel, a girl steps through a magic barrier into a new realm, where she tries to help creatures suffering from a drought.

Eleven-year-old Alicia loves nothing more than the summers she spends with her parents at their cabin near Cascade, Idaho. The lake is a great place for swimming, snorkeling, and observing nature—something that Alicia, who loves earth science, especially enjoys. One day, she and her father row across the lake, but their day is cut short by rain. Just as they're about to leave, Alicia spies something strange out of the corner of her eye. When she stops trying to focus on it, "suddenly, startlingly, everything pop[s] into clarity" for the girl, who steps forward and finds herself in a new and different reality. As her father searches for her frantically back home, Alicia befriends talking animals in the new world—called the "Wild Side"by its inhabitants. Mickey, a squirrel, explains that the Wild Side is suffering from "The Drying," a drought caused by Gran'Tree, a tree so enormous that his branches block the sun and his roots suck up all the water. With the help of her new friends, Alicia goes on a dangerous journey to Gran'Tree, hoping that she can convince him to open the barrier, send her home, and end the Drying. Illustrator Allen's (Four Decades of Paintings & Poems, 2014, etc.) lovely, sensitive black-and-white images accompany the text well. Foster structures his debut novel along the archetypal lines of The Wizard of Oz, which also features a human girl, unusual companions, and a risky journey to ask favors of an all-powerful being. This novel lacks Oz author L. Frank Baum's loony inventiveness, however. Still, Alicia does come across as an intelligent, science-minded heroine for the modern era, and the story has a fresh ecological focus. Some perplexing authorial choices work against this theme, however; foxes, who are necessary predators, are cast as "evil," for example, and a tree—often an emblem of ecological balance—hardly seems appropriate as a selfish, resource-stealing villain.

A well-illustrated story that makes a few missteps but features an appealing heroine.

Kirkus Reviews