cover image The Boss on Redemption Road

The Boss on Redemption Road

Lane Walker. Evergreen, $9.99 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-58169-563-2

Walker, an outdoor writer and hunter, tells the story of an aptly named sixth-grader named Hunter in the didactic fourth book in the Hometown Hunters series. When Hunter’s father loses his job in Denver, the family moves to a farm on Redemption Road in the town of Pine Bluff, offered to them by a relative. Addicted to video games, Hunter can imagine no good for himself in his family’s move. Although he was bullied at his Denver school, he would rather stay in the city. Bullying follows Hunter to tiny Pine Bluff, but it’s there that he makes his first real friends. “City Boy,” as he is quickly dubbed by classmates and others, works after school for his cranky neighbor, a woman others derisively call “Crazy Kate.” As Hunter comes to know her and her sad history, he becomes her champion and insists others call her “Miss Kate.” In the end, a prize is won in a surprising way in an elk-hunting contest, and the locals learn to look beyond appearances and to live in harmony. Walker’s writing is competent, but nothing in the tale is very fresh. Ages 7–12. (Nov.)