Fire on Headless Mountain

When 11-year-old Virgil Pepper and his siblings, 19-year-old Joshua and 15-year-old Kaitlyn, head to spread their mother’s ashes at her favorite forest haunt, Little Lost Lake, the engine on their camper van unexpectedly blows. Their artistic father hasn’t joined them, and though the kids’ science teacher mother taught them excellent survival skills, escalating disasters follow their arrival alongside a wild electrical storm. The siblings lack food and water, the only nearby structure is the eerie “Sasquatch museum,” Kaitlyn injures her ankle falling from a tree, and a fast-moving wildfire cuts off the soon-separated siblings’ path to safety. Vividly wrought, scientifically grounded text layers facts to develop the protagonists’ plight, while occasionally pace-slowing flashbacks hint at their parents’ differing worldviews. Lawrence (Deadman’s Castle) draws from his experience fighting forest fires; that expertise informs harrowing descriptions of the out-of-control blaze, creating an elucidating and hopeful portrait of grief amid the natural world. Characters cue as white. Ages 9–12. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary. (Aug.)