The Long Shadow by Phyllis Wheeler
Think: It's a Wonderful Life, crossed with To Kill a Mockingbird.
Winner of a Purple Dragonfly Award and a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award, The Long Shadow keeps readers turning pages. Find out today why so many fans love this book and its positive message of reconciliation and hope. For ages 13 and up
Richie, age 14, doesn’t expect to time-travel. He just wants to go camping. Little does he know that an angelic truck driver has other ideas for him.
Aunt Trudy never wanted kids. Now that she’s Richie’s guardian, she makes his life miserable. Richie wants to escape, so he seeks refuge in the deep Missouri woods he loves so much.
Looking for a campsite, he wanders between two cedar trees. Suddenly it’s not summer, but late fall. Richie doesn’t realize at first that he’s traveled back in time fifty years. After a freak storm, he’s freezing. The person who saves him is Morris, a mysterious black woodsman.
Richie and Morris both long for home. But getting there seems impossible. Then Richie realizes that the key to bringing Morris in from the cold could be a trip further back in time—to try to prevent a terrible crime.