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Silver Medal, Parent’s Choice Awards
Junior Library Guild Selection
Bank Street College Best Books of the Year
“A thrilling, imaginative soul quencher. Crowder’s stunning debut is sure to become a modern classic.” —Rita Williams-Garcia, Newbery Honor-winning author of One Crazy Summer
“Readers will want to tackle [this story] with a full water bottle on hand.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
“The writing, especially the descriptions of the drought conditions and extreme thirst, is excellent.” —School Library Journal
“The direct powerful prose in this first novel dramatizes the exciting contemporary survival story. . . . Fans of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet (1987) will want this.” —Booklist
A mesmerizing debut about a girl, a boy, and a dog struggling to survive in a parched and barren land.
Sarel is a girl with secrets. She knows which tree roots reach down deep to pools of precious water. But now she must learn how to keep herself and her dogs alive. Nandi is the leader of those dogs. She knows they can’t last long without water—and she knows, too, that a boy is coming; a boy with the water song inside him.
Musa is that boy. His talent for finding water got him kidnapped by brutal men, yet he’s escaped, running away across the thirsty land that nearly claims his life. And so Sarel, Musa, and the dogs come together in what might be their last hope of survival.
Parched Discussion Teachers’ Guide