96 MILES
Starscape/Macmillan, 2020
*Junior Library Guild Selection
*Winner of the Whitney Award for best Debut Novel
*Winner of the William Allen White Children’s Book Award
*Winner of the 2022-2023 Truman Readers Award
*Nominated for a South Carolina Junior Book Award
*Named to the Junior Tome Society’s “It List”
*Selected for the Oklahoma’s Sequoyah Masterlist for 2022
*A Kansas National Education Association Recommended Book
*Nominated for Pennsylvania’s Young Reader’s Choice Award
*Selected for the Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award Long List
*A Nevada Young Reader Award selection
*Maine Student Book Award nominee
*Shortlisted for Reading the West Book Award
*Finalist for the AML Middle Grade Novel Award
*Selected for the William Allen White Children Book Award ‘s Master List
*Magnolia Book Award nominee
*South Dakota Teen Choice Book Award
*Idaho Battle of the Books Selection
*Jr Tome Society Selection
*A Louisiana Readers Choice Award Nominee
*Nominated for the Georgia Childrens Book Award
*A Nutmeg Award Nominee
*Minnesota Maud Hart Lovelace Nominee
For fans of Gary Paulsen’s classic Hatchet and Lauren Tarshis’s bestselling I Survived series, J. L. Esplin’s 96 Miles is a story of survival and desperation as two young brothers confront the worst in humanity—and themselves.
Dad always said if things get desperate, it’s okay to drink the water in the toilet. I never thought it would come to that. I thought I’d sooner die than let one drop of toilet water touch my lips. Yet here I am, kneeling before a porcelain throne, holding a tin mug for scooping in one hand, and my half-gallon canteen in the other.
The Lockwood brothers are supposed to be able to survive anything. Their dad, a hardcore believer in self-reliance, has stockpiled enough food and water at their isolated Nevada home to last for months. But when they are robbed of all their supplies during a massive blackout while their dad is out of town, John and Stew must walk 96 miles in the stark desert sun to get help. Along the way, they’re forced to question their dad’s insistence on self-reliance and ask just what it is that we owe to our neighbors, our kin, and to ourselves.
From talented newcomer J. L. Esplin comes this story of survival and determination as two young brothers confront the unpredictability of human nature in the face of desperate circumstances.