Just Keep Walking

Two years after her parents' sudden and painful split, twelve-year-old Jo and her mom set out on a 100-mile hike along the Superior Hiking Trail on the north shore of Lake Superior. Jo had always looked forward to making this journey with her dad. Now she and her mother are on the trail without him, with their whole lives packed into two thirty-pound backpacks, in a situation neither of them ever imagined. On the trail they deal with constant aches and pains, scorching heat and crippling self-doubt. They come across bears, moose and other wildlife, and they gather a collection of unlikely friends along the way. Day after day Jo fights the relentless thoughts running through her head, and each new obstacle tests her strength and her will to keep going. She has to face her biggest fears and learn how to be alone. The hike starts as a way to show her father that she and her mom can manage on their own. It becomes a search for their own strength and resilience, and a way of proving they can get through this for themselves and for each other. This middle-grade novel by Erin Soderberg Downing, who also writes chapter books, focuses on resilience and the restorative power of wilderness and nature.