Guy Harris, the Runaway

Guy Harris is restless. At home, suffocated by relatives who see no future for a boy with wild dreams, he stares out at the wide prairie and imagines the life waiting for him beyond it. He wants to be a hunter and trapper, to feel the wind on the open range, to be free. When he finally runs away, the adventure he craves becomes something more complicated than he'd imagined, but also more true. This is a boy's book in the finest sense: a story about the hunger to escape, the longings that drive young men to frontier spaces, and what it actually means to find yourself in the wilderness. Castlemon writes with period-specific warmth about the clash between domestic obligation and the call of the wild, capturing a particular American dream that still resonates.