Dirt Bikes, Drones & Other Ways to Fly
Dirt Bikes, Drones & Other Ways to Fly. Conrad Wesselhoeft, 2014. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Arlo Santiago, 17, lives in small town in New Mexico. We’re thrown right into the action on the first page, as he grabs for his phone when he gets a wake-up call. But it isn’t his usual buddies calling him to jump on his dirt bike for their ride to school. It’s an Air Force officer who has noticed his proficiency at a video game called Drone Pilot, and wants him to fly drone for them. He takes the job, which has him racing to the air base in White Sands to track the movements of an Islamic revolutionary in the Swat region of Pakistan. It's interesting, and he can use the money: it's about the only money that’s coming in to the family right now.
Home is a horror show. Speed is Arlo's escape. A local mentor-cum-impresario takes him and his pals sky-diving (the trip we go on isn’t the first one.) He talks Arlo into doing a dirt bike stunt jump at a football game. It goes badly, and Arlo is hurt. But that doesn't stop him. There is a TV show on extreme sports events that pays big bucks, and Arlo conceives of a whopper: flying off the edge of a beloved mesa where his mom’s ashes are spread.
Great book! In addition to being a believable view into the mind of a teenaged guy – unfamiliar ground to this old lady -- it does a beautiful job of creating the setting in New Mexico, a place I know well.
Arlo Santiago, 17, lives in small town in New Mexico. We’re thrown right into the action on the first page, as he grabs for his phone when he gets a wake-up call. But it isn’t his usual buddies calling him to jump on his dirt bike for their ride to school. It’s an Air Force officer who has noticed his proficiency at a video game called Drone Pilot, and wants him to fly drone for them. He takes the job, which has him racing to the air base in White Sands to track the movements of an Islamic revolutionary in the Swat region of Pakistan. It's interesting, and he can use the money: it's about the only money that’s coming in to the family right now.
Home is a horror show. Speed is Arlo's escape. A local mentor-cum-impresario takes him and his pals sky-diving (the trip we go on isn’t the first one.) He talks Arlo into doing a dirt bike stunt jump at a football game. It goes badly, and Arlo is hurt. But that doesn't stop him. There is a TV show on extreme sports events that pays big bucks, and Arlo conceives of a whopper: flying off the edge of a beloved mesa where his mom’s ashes are spread.
Great book! In addition to being a believable view into the mind of a teenaged guy – unfamiliar ground to this old lady -- it does a beautiful job of creating the setting in New Mexico, a place I know well.
