Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

Seventeen-year-old Arlo Santiago lives for the “Drone Zone”that free, joyful, antigravity feeling. He achieves the Zone with risky motorcycle stunts on New Mexico roads, or while playing his favourite video game, Drone Pilot. His gaming skills are so off the charts, he’s recruited by the U.S. Air Force to remotely operate real-life drones in Pakistan. How can he refuse the paycheck when his little sister’s health is at stake? This pull-no-punches novel soars, with poetic style, focus on friends and family, philosophical life-and-death musings, and vividly drawn setting of a land “at the intersection of mesa dust and tractor rust.” AGES: 12-17 AUTHOR: Conrad Wesselhoeft has worked on the editorial staff of five newspapers and is the author of another Houghton Mifflin Harcourt title, Adios, Nirvana. He has three children and a big grinning poodle named Django.