Get Lost

Have you ever been driving (or been driven) down a highway when the sun is high in the sky and it’s so hot out that the dashboard becomes a dangerous thing to touch because of the heat? Imagine it: you’re barefoot, one hand is out the window feeling the breeze of the swooshing wind going by the car and the air smells of grass and highway and exhaust and some indistinguishable flower you can’t seem to name. You feel lazy because it’s so hot, and there’s something dreamy about everything, something intangible that permeates the air. This is the time of road trips and adventures, of getting lost in the heat of the season.

One of my favorite things about road trips is the highway mirages that pop up every once in a while. For example, when you’re cresting a hill and you see shimmering air hovering over the highway? When I was little I imagined I’d be transported to a different world if we ever hit that air. And to this day I am still convinced, despite all protestations from my logical brain, that they are portals to a different, magical world. But until the day I catch up with the shimmering air, books are my official transport to different worlds. And in that spirit, I will talk about two books that will help you “get lost.”

If you haven’t read Dotti Enderle’s series, The Fortune Tellers Club, you’ve seriously missed out. But don’t worry, it’s not too late! You can still get the feel of the shimmering air and experience this world of mystery and magic as the Fortune Tellers Club uses its skills to get out of scrapes and to help those in need. The best place to start: The Lost Girl, of course.

In this first book of the series, we meet Juniper, Anne and Gena — three unlikely friends drawn together by their love of fortunetelling and the mysterious. Juniper, the unofficial leader of the bunch, befriends the two other girls when she brings her Magic 8 ball to school. Gena and Anne are enthralled and the three start their fortunetelling club with Juniper as a guide. Soon after, the girls encounter a mystery that must be solved — a local girl is missing and is in grave danger. When Juniper sees the missing girl’s face in a bowl of water, she knows she is destined to help. But time is ticking away and the clues seem to be getting more and more vague.

The three decide to try psychometry — the act of touching something to get a psychic impression of someone — to find the missing girl. By going through some gross garbage, Juniper finds just the thing: a cup from a kid’s meal that must have belonged to the little girl. And it works! A little too well. Every time Juniper touches the cup, she feels sick and thirsty. She knows without a doubt that the girl’s time is almost up. Now it’s up to her, her two best friends and the talents of The Fortune Tellers Club to rescue the little girl before it’s too late.

If you’re looking for sanctuary, why not try L.O.S.T., otherwise known as Live Oaks Spring Township? All you have to do is be a witch, one of the OldeFolke or the Shadowalker to gain entrance. Oh yeah, and you have to have the ability to put up with the pesky Queen of Witches, Jazz, who has a hair-trigger temper and some serious OCD tendencies. This is the world Bren steps into one hot summer day on his way to visit a friend. Bren doesn’t realize that he is the Shadowalker, destined to save Jazz and her people — he’s too distracted by the fact that this beautiful girl, Jazz, is both maddening and tempting and has kidnapped him from his world. It’s almost too much for a boy to take (especially a boy with ADHD).

Debbie Federici and Susan Vaught create a world in L.O.S.T. that is magical and dangerous. As Jazz works to convince Bren that he is indeed the Shadowalker, the only one who can stop the growing evil that is threatening the witches and the sanctuaries Jazz and her father so carefully constructed, she works on not falling for this difficult and impetuous boy. At 16, Jazz feels overwhelmed by her responsibility as Queen of Witches, and struggles to maintain order and balance in her world. The presence of Bren should ease her mind, but he only seeks to throw her even more off-balance — does he have to be so darn good-looking? Does he have to be difficult and contrary, yet everything she’s ever wanted in a potential soulmate? Jazz’s world, and the world beyond, may have a chance against the impending doom threatening to destroy the world if Bren and Jazz can just find a way to stop fighting and fall in love.

Getting lost has never been so fun with books like these! Who needs nebulous air that is impossible to catch when your portal to different worlds lives so perfectly in the books mentioned here? So, on your summer road trip, when the weather is so hot it’s hard to move and you need to jump into the perfect fantasy, pick up one of these books and start reading. I urge you wholeheartedly to take this summer and get lost.