The Hike to Home

by Jess Rinker

Overview

In this fun middle grade adventure, a young girl and her two new friends brave the wilderness to find a castle, prove a local legend, and discover the true meaning of home.

Lin Moser is not looking forward to this summer. After living on the road all her life, hiking mountains and traveling through the country in an RV with her house-flipping parents, she’s now stuck in Newbridge, New Jersey for their longest stay yet. With Mom away on a year-long naturalist assignment, Lin has resigned herself to having the most boring summer ever. But then she finds out about a local legend: an ancient ruined castle in the woods that no one has been able to find. Hiking to this castle would be like a quest. . . such an amazing quest that Mom might even come home, and they could adventure together the way they used to.

Determined to create her own adventure, Lin sets off on her biggest one yet—braving the wilderness with her two new friends, seeking the castle, and maybe discovering a new idea of home along the way.

With her trademark humor and heart, Jess Rinker delivers a story of adventure and growing up in The Hike to Home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250812759
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jess Rinker always wanted to find treasure as a child. In the woods or on the beach, she was always hunting for something, and when she first visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina at fourteen, she discovered the incredible history there was a treasure in itself. She could never be a pirate because she gets seasick, but writing about pirates has been quite fun. She’s now a children’s author and writing teacher, and she still searches for treasures. She is the author of The Dare Sisters and The Dare Sisters: Shipwrecked.

Editorial Reviews

06/13/2022

Stuck in Newbridge, N.J., with her father while her mother participates in a yearlong film residency in the Dry Tortugas, 12-year-old Melinda “Lin” Moser feels miserable. She’s spent years traveling the country as part of her parents’ popular YouTube home renovation show, Moseying with the Mosers, and resents being left behind. Ditching summer camp for her own film project, Lin becomes determined to find and film Pen’s Castle, a rumored local haunt off the Appalachian Trail with purported roots in Arthurian legend and connections to Freemasonry. Along the way, she also hopes to prove that she—like both her mother and 19th-century mountaineer Annie Smith Peck, the subject of a book her mom sends her—is a true adventurer. Alongside musical theater enthusiast Tinsley Cooper, whose father is recovering from a work accident at local Sanders Construction, and bookish Leo Martin, bullied by another Sanders, Lin searches for clues about the castle while concocting a plan to spend two days hiking and filming in the woods. Rinker (The Dare Sisters) packs themes and plot points into a novel whose real strength is its characters; if the story sometimes bogs down as a result, the white-cued kids’ rapport and significant emotional arcs satisfy. Ages 8–12. Agent: Linda Epstein, Emerald City Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Rinker’s affinity for treasure-seeking quests serves readers well, as do her clear interest in and affection for the natural world... An enjoyably alfresco romp." — Kirkus Reviews

"Rinker (The Dare Sisters) packs themes and plot points into a novel whose real strength is its characters... the rapport and significant emotional arcs satisfy." — Publishers Weekly

"A cross between the Irwin family’s adventures and National Treasure, this is an entertaining quest that touches on facets of home and family, bullying, and personal creativity. A quick read that will entertain and challenge readers to seek out adventures in their own backyards." — Booklist

From the Publisher

2022-04-13
Feeling abandoned by her filmmaker mom, who’s on a yearlong residency in the Dry Tortugas, a tween finds friendship, mystery, and adventure in a small New Jersey town.

Lin loves her family’s unusual lifestyle. Her dad restores old houses around the country, while her mom films the process for their popular YouTube channel. The three occupy a souped-up bus that they move from location to location. With Mom away and Dad occupied, Lin—formerly home-schooled, now enrolled in public school summer rec camp—is bored and disgruntled. That is, until she’s befriended by pink-haired classmate Tinsley. When Lin confides her intention to make a film about her summer, Tinsley’s thrilled. Their friendship evolves to include Leo, a shy, overparented King Arthur buff who tells Lin about an abandoned castle believed to lie nearby, off the Appalachian Trail. Tinsley confides that her dad’s Freemason lodge has long unsuccessfully sought the castle. Lin persuades them to break into the lodge to search for clues to its presumed whereabouts and then to join her on an overnight camping trip to find it. Things get more complicated when they’re pursued by a trio of bullies who intend to capitalize on any exciting discoveries. Meandering at first, the pace picks up with the search for the castle—as do the stakes. Rinker’s affinity for treasure-seeking quests serves readers well, as do her clear interest in and affection for the natural world. Characters default to White.

An enjoyably alfresco romp. (Fiction. 8-13)

Kirkus Reviews