{"product_id":"a-bridge-to-the-stars-isbn-9780440240426","title":"A Bridge to the Stars","description":"\u003ci\u003eThis poignant novel explores how a unilateral decision can change a life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eTwo things are hard for Joel Gustafson to cope with: not knowing why, and not being able to do anything about it. Joel’s father was once a sailor who lived by the sea. Joel’s mother once lived with them. Joel’s father abandoned the sea. Joel’s mother abandoned Joel and his father. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile looking out his window one night, Joel sees a lonely dog on the street. Joel spots the animal again and begins sneaking out night after night, trying to find it. During these nocturnal outings, Joel discovers aspects of life he has never imagined. And then one night he discovers that his father’s bed, too, is empty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Joel investigates his father’s mysterious absences and continues to search for the dog, he discovers his own inner strength and learns about adult disappointments and needs.\u003cb\u003ePraise for Mankell’s Kurt Wallander novels:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“The Nordic King of the European thriller writers.”\u003cbr\u003e–\u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003eHenning Mankell is the prizewinning and internationally acclaimed author of novels for both adults and young people. His adult novels dominate bestseller lists across Europe. Born in a village in northern Sweden, Mankell divides his time between Sweden and Africa, where he works with AIDS-related charities. He is also director of Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique. Mankell's companion novels about Joel and his father are \u003ci\u003eShadows in the Twilight\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhen the Snow Fell\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eJourney to the End of the World\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cp\u003eThe dog.\u003cbr\u003e That was what started it all.\u003cbr\u003e If he hadn't seen that solitary dog, nothing might have happened. Nothing of what later became so important that it changed everything. Nothing of what was so exciting at first, but became so horrible.\u003cbr\u003e It all started with the dog. The solitary dog he'd seen that night last winter when he'd suddenly woken up, got out of bed, tiptoed out to the window seat in the hall and sat down.\u003cbr\u003e He had no idea why he'd woken up in the middle of the night.\u003cbr\u003e Maybe he'd had a dream?\u003cbr\u003e A nightmare that he couldn't recall when he woke up. Or maybe his dad had been snoring in the bedroom next to his own? His dad didn't often snore, but sometimes there might be an occasional one, a bit like a roar, and then it would be all quiet again. \u003cbr\u003e Like a lion roaring in the winter's night.\u003cbr\u003e But it was when he was sitting by the window in the hall that he saw the solitary dog.\u003cbr\u003e The window had been covered in ice crystals, and he'd breathed onto the glass so that he could see out. The thermometer showed nearly thirty degrees below zero. And it was then, as he sat looking out of the window, that he'd caught sight of the dog. It ran out into the road, all on its own.\u003cbr\u003e It stopped underneath the streetlamp, looked and sniffed in all directions, and set off running again. Then it vanished.\u003cbr\u003e It was a familiar kind of dog, common in northern Sweden. A Norwegian elkhound. He'd managed to see that much. But why was it running around just there, all alone in the wintry night and the cold? Where was it heading? And why? And why did it look and sniff in all directions?\u003cbr\u003e He'd had the impression that the dog was frightened of something. \u003cbr\u003e He'd started to feel cold, but he stayed in the window, waiting for the dog to come back. But nothing happened. \u003cbr\u003e There was nothing out there, only the cold, empty winter's night. And stars glittering in the far distance. \u003cbr\u003e He couldn't get that solitary dog out of his mind. \u003cbr\u003e Lots of times that winter he'd woken up without knowing why. Every time, he got out of bed, tiptoed over the cold cork tiles and sat down on the window seat, waiting for the dog to come back. \u003cbr\u003e Once he fell asleep on the window seat. He was still there at five in the morning when his dad got up to make coffee.\u003cbr\u003e \"What are you doing here?\" his father asked after shaking him and waking him up.\u003cbr\u003e His father was called Samuel, and he was a lumberjack. Early every morning he would go out into the forest to work. He chopped trees down for a big timber company with an unusual name. Marma Long Tubes.\u003cbr\u003e He didn't know what to say when his dad found him asleep on the window seat. He couldn't very well say he'd been waiting for a dog. Dad might think he was telling lies, and Dad didn't like people who didn't tell the truth. \u003cbr\u003e \"I don't know,\" he said. \"Maybe I was sleepwalking again?\"\u003cbr\u003e That was something he could claim. It wasn't absolutely true, but it wasn't a lie either.\u003cbr\u003e He used to sleepwalk when he was little. Not that he remembered anything about it. It was something his dad had told him about. How he'd come walking out of his bedroom in his nightshirt, into the room where his father was listening to the radio or studying some of his old sea charts. Dad had taken him back to bed, but in the morning he couldn't explain why he'd been wandering around in his sleep.\u003cbr\u003e That was ages ago. Five years ago. Nearly half of his life. He was eleven now.\u003cbr\u003e \"Go back to bed,\" said his dad. \"You mustn't sit here and catch your death of cold.\"\u003cbr\u003e He snuggled back into bed and listened to his dad making coffee, preparing the sandwiches he would take into the forest with him, and eventually he heard the front door closing.\u003cbr\u003e Then everything was quiet.\u003cbr\u003e He checked the alarm clock by his bed, on a stool he'd been given as a present for his seventh birthday.\u003cbr\u003e He hated that stool. It was his birthday present, but he'd really wanted a kite.\u003cbr\u003e He felt angry every time he saw it.\u003cbr\u003e How could anybody give a stool to somebody who wanted a kite?\u003cbr\u003e He could sleep for two more hours before he'd have to get up and go to school. He pulled the blanket up to his chin, curled up and closed his eyes, and the first thing he saw was that dog running towards him. It was running silently through the winter's night, and perhaps it was on its way to a distant star?\u003cbr\u003e But now he was sure that he was going to catch that dog. He would entice it into his dream. They could be friends there, and it wouldn't be as cold as it was outside in the wintry night.\u003cbr\u003e He soon fell asleep, the lumberjack's son, whose name was Joel Gustafson.\u003cbr\u003e It was in the winter of 1956 that he saw that solitary dog for the first time.\u003cbr\u003e And that was the winter when it all happened.\u003cbr\u003e All that stuff that started with the dog . . .\u003cbr\u003e two\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The house where Joel lived with his father, Samuel, was by the river.\u003cbr\u003e The spring floods would come surging and thundering down from the distant mountains beyond the dark forests. The house was where the river curved round before continuing on its long journey to the sea.\u003cbr\u003e But now it was winter, and the river was asleep under its white blanket of snow and ice. Ski tracks scratched stripes into the white snow.\u003cbr\u003e Down by the river Joel had a secret. \u003cbr\u003e Close by the stone buttresses supporting the big iron bridge where trains shuddered past several times a day was a big rock that had split into two.\u003cbr\u003e Once upon a time the rock had been completely round. The crack had divided it into two halves, and Joel used to pretend that it was the earth. Whenever he crawled into the crack, where it smelt of damp moss, he would imagine being deep down inside the earth that he actually lived on.\u003cbr\u003e A secret was being able to see what other people didn't see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Delacorte Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300674228453,"sku":"NP9780440240426","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440240426.jpg?v=1767720317","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/a-bridge-to-the-stars-isbn-9780440240426","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}