What does it feel like to leap off a cliff and soar in a hang glider? To raise fledgling condors and release them into the wild? To outwit the sinister local yahoos who want to kill the giant, endangered birds? To be pursued at night in the red-rock moonscape of Utah's canyon country? The Maze combines all these enticing elements in a strong coming-of-age novel steeped in respect and concern for nature that is a characteristic of award-winning author Will Hobbs.

With a sure hand for pacing and suspense, Hobbs tells the story of Rick Walker, an angry young runaway escaping foster homes and detention centers. Rick takes refuge in the wilderness camp of an eccentric naturalist, Lon Peregrino, who teaches the teen rebel how to care for the California condors under his care. Rick's daring and initiative grow under Lon's guidance as he masters driving a truck over hair-raising mountain roads and hovering over the maze of canyons on the wings of a hang-glider. But is his newfound manhood enough to confront the forces that want the condors dead? And who will help him sort out the maze of his life when the authorities catch up with him? Younger readers graduating from Gary Paulsen's survival stories will be delighted to discover this adventure writer, while older fans of Hobbs's Downriver and other wilderness adventures are likely to deem The Maze one of his best. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-Fourteen-year-old Rick Walker feels that his life is a maze. He's been bounced around from one foster family to another and is sent to a detention center for hard-core juvenile offenders after committing a petty offense. After he reports corruption at the facility, the boy is forced to flee for his life and ends up in an isolated part of Utah's canyon country, near an area called the Maze. Here he forms a friendship with Lon, a biologist who is trying to reintroduce condors into the wild. The two work together, observing and assisting the birds, and Lon teaches Rick to hang glide. When they run afoul of a pair of nasty antigovernment types who are hiding a cache of weapons in the area, their lives are placed in danger. Certain elements of the plot are pretty conventional, appearing in countless young adult novels (troubled teen runs away and finds redemption with wise friend in a remote area). What sets this book apart is the inclusion of fascinating details about the condors and hang gliding, especially the action-packed description of Rick's first solo flight above the canyons in the face of an approaching thunderstorm. Many young readers will find this an adventure story that they can't put down.Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, ILCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Dreams of flight have haunted Rick all his 14 years. Now, after several foster homes and a sentence to a rough detention center, he flees. His mad escape takes him to Lon, a man involved in a condor reintroduction program. Sala's voice, hard-boiled and Western-sounding, initially sounds too tough for this sensitive story, but he reads with supreme talent. Nuances of myth mingle smoothly with science and adventure. In fact, Sala's deft balance guides the narrative smoothly over some uneven patches of writing. Under Lon's tutelage, Rick, like the condors, learns to navigate the air. Sala propels us aloft, and Hobbs's descriptions of his apprenticeship in a glider become breathtaking. S.B.S. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Gr. 6^-12. Being shuffled through numerous foster homes turns essentially good-hearted Rick Walker into an angry teen. Minor scrapes with the law eventually land him before a judge who asks the boy who he really is. Unable to respond, Rick is sent to a horrible detention center to come up with an answer. When threatened by fellow inmates, Rick escapes and ends up in "The Maze," a treacherous labyrinth of deep canyons and tall spires in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. Taken in by an amiable loner, Rick learns about hang gliding, preserving wildlife, and, inevitably, being a responsible young man. Hobbs' leisurely paced plot moves along steadily throughout most of the story, infusing a nice lesson on the endangered condor and well-crafted parallels between the elusive bird and Rick's character. The short, singular-focus chapters make for easy reading, and the climactic scenes create enough momentum to make this an entertaining and satisfying adventure. Roger Leslie

Book Description
Just fourteen, Rick Walder is alone, on the run, and desperate. Stowing away in the back of a truck, he suddenly finds himself at a dead end, out in the middle of nowhere. The Maze. In this surreal landscape of stark redrock spires and deep sandstone canyons, Rick stumbles into the remote camp of Lon Perigrino, a bird biologist who is realeasing fledgling California condors back into the wild. Intriqued by the endangered condors and the strange bearded man dedicated to saving them, Rick decides to stay on. When two men with a vicious dog drive up in a battered old Humvee, Rick discovers that Lon and his birds are in grave danger. Will he be able to save them? In a heart-stopping adventure infused with the spirit of the Icarus myth and a boy's dreams of flight, Will Hobbs brings readers a unique tale of identity, personal growth, and friendship. 01 Blue Spruce Award Masterlist (YA Cat.), 01 AZ Young Reader Award Masterlist (Teen Bks cat.), 00-01 Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Masterlist (Gr. 6-8), 00-01 Black-Eyed Susan Award Masterlist, 00-01 Minnesota's Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award Masterlist, 00-01 South Carolina Book Award Nomination Masterlist (Grds 6-9), 00-01 Lone Star Reading List, 00-01 Utah Book Award (Gr. 7-12), 01 Washington State Evergreen YA Book Award Masterlist, 00-01 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Gr. 6-8), and 01 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominee Masterlist

Card catalog description
Rick, a fourteen-year-old foster child, escapes from a juvenile detention facility near Las Vegas and travels to Canyonlands National Park in Utah where he meets a bird biologist working on a project to reintroduce condors to the wild.

From the Publisher
"What sets this book apart is the inclusion of fascinating details about the condors and hang gliding, especially the action-packed description of Rick's first solo flight above the canyons...Many young readers will find this an adventure story that they can't put down."

About the Author
Will Hobbs is the author of fourteen novels for upper elementary, middle school and young adult readers, as well as two picture book stories. Seven of his novels, Bearstone, Downriver, The Big Wander, Beardance, Far North, The Maze, and Jason's Gold were named Best Books for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Far North was selected by the ALA as one of the "Top Ten" young adult books of 1996, and Ghost Canoe received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1998 for Best Young Adult Mystery.Will's books have won many other awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, the Western Writers of America Spur Award, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the Colorado Book Award, and nominations to state award lists in over thirty states. A graduate of Stanford University and former reading and language arts teacher, Will has been a full-time writer since 1990. He lives with his wife, Jean, in Durango, Colorado. In His Own Words..."Readers often ask me, "What made you want to write in the first place?" That's easy for me to answer: It was because I loved reading. If you like reading stories, you too might start thinking, I want to try that. I want to write a story!"I grew up in an Air Force family. We lived in Pennsylvania, Panama, Virginia, Alaska, northern California, southern California, and Texas. I have three brothers and a sister. While we were living in Alaska, I fell in love with mountains, rivers, fishing, baseball, and books. Books I read on my own were always the best part of school for me. I was always going on adventures in my imagination."We moved from Alaska to California when I was halfway through fifth grade. I roamed the hills almost every day after school, and in the summers I went backpacking in the Sierras. After graduating from Stanford University, I moved to southwestern Colorado, where my wife, Jean, and I now make our home. We do lots of hiking in the nearby San Juan Mountains. You won't be surprised to learn that I was a reading teacher for many years before I became a full-time writer."About half of my ideas for stories come from life experiences, and the other half come from reading, as I learn more about whatever has sparked my interest. In the Grand Canyon one year, we met some rafters from Canada who told us about a remote river they loved called the Nahanni. I found a book on it, and we soon found ourselves heading way up into northern Canada, hiring a bush pilot, and flying in to the Nahanni. A thirteen-day trip on our raft led to months of fascinating reading about the land and people of the Northwest Territories. The result was Far North, set on the Nahanni."Learning to write well is like learning to play a musical instrument or a sport. It takes practice and dedication. My big breakthrough was learning to write with the five senses. In the world of the story, both writer and reader are imagining what it's like to be someone else, so you want to let the reader hear, see, taste, touch, and smell what your characters are experiencing."When I'm starting a new story, it takes a lot of faith. I'm like a woodcarver staring at a block of wood. It helps me to remember how, in the story of Pinocchio, that block of wood turned into a real boy. If you just keep working, you'll reach a point when the story starts coming to life. That's what a writer lives for! From that point on, you're hearing conversations in your head, you're seeing things happen, and you're just writing it all down."

Excerpted from Maze by Will Hobbs. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Chapter OneRick Walker tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry."The state of Nevada has a problem with you... " the judge began, then paused to glare at him over his reading glasses.Rick Walker glanced at his social worker, seated beside him on his right. He wondered if the pause meant he was supposed to answer. He wasn't sure what to make of this bald and bony-headed old man who was the judge. The sign on the door of his courtroom said he was The Honorable Samuel L. Bendix. At the moment he seemed more hostile than honorable."Why?" the judge suddenly demanded.Rick was confused. Why what? What was the judge asking him? Once again his eyes went to his social worker for help. Janice Baker seemed confused too.As Rick looked back toward the black robe, he felt his lip quiver. In an instant he forgot that his social worker had warned him about the judge's "enormous discretionary power." He reverted to his instincts for dealing with powerful adversaries: don't show fear, or you'll be eaten alive.With a slight shrug he asked, "Why what?"He saw the judge's skin flush red up and over his skull. "Why were you throwing the stones, repeatedly, at the stop sign? Why would anyone throw more than thirty rocks at a stop sign?"Rick knew he couldn't afford to say anything further that would get taken the wrong way. He hesitated, looking deep inside for the real answer. That's what the judge wanted: the real answer. His hesitation lengthened. Rick didn't know the real answer. The only thing he could think of was his grandmother dying. Everything that went wrong happened because of that. But the judge wasn't going to accept excuses, especially something that happened four years ago. Why was he throwing those rocks?He didn't know the answer himself. It was all too confusing. All he could remember was being in a sort of trance. It had happened only a few blocks from the group home, on his way from school. He didn't know he had thrown so many rocks. He couldn't even remember what he'd been thinking about. "I don't know," he said at last."You don't knowthe judge repeated incredulously.Rick tried his best. "It wasn't for any specific reason," he explained."Not for any reason.The rising cadence of the judge's voice felt ominous. Rick unfolded his arms and put them down by his sides. "Just general frustration, I guess," he managed.The judge looked aside, put his fist to his chin, looked back at Rick. "General frustration is what I'm feeling right now myself," the judge said. "Just this morning, over coffee, I read about two juveniles no older than you bludgeoning a nine-year-old to death with a baseball bat. "So? Rick thought. What does that have to do with me?The judge paused. His eyes had drifted, unfocusing, to the floor. "So many with no conscience," he said as if to himself. "A petty offender one day becomes a murderer the next. It didn't used to be like this."The judge's eyes were suddenly back in focus and locked on Rick. "Didn't I tell you just six weeks ago that I didn't want to see you in my courtroom ever again?""Yes," Rick agreed."Yes, Your Honor," his social worker said under her breath."Yes, Your Honor."Rick felt so light-headed he thought he might faint. In the corner of his vision he was aware of a man in a police uniform coming up the side aisle. It was young Mike Brown, his probation officer, with his trim dark mustache and his face blank like a robot's."Say you're sorry," Janice Baker whispered.Rick glanced at her. He should have said it himself, before this. Now the judge was glaring worse than ever, knowing he'd just been instructed to say he was sorry.He couldn't, not now. Not when he was being forced to. He had a certain amount of pride. What could the judge do to him anyway? Janice Baker had told him about a place near Lake Tahoe for kids like him who'd gotten into a little bit of trouble. It didn't sound so bad, being in the pine trees and the mountains. It couldn't be much worse than the group home he was in now in Reno. The couple running the group home was only doing it for the money. They didn't even care enough to come to court with him.His social worker appealed to Rick with a glance. He shook his head.With a disapproving look at him, Janice Baker rose to her feet "Please take into account Your Honor, Rick's background. He's only fourteen. In the last four years, he has lived in foster homes in Fresno, Stockton, Merced, and Sacramento, California, as well as a foster home and a group home here in Reno. During that time he has been enrolled in six different schools...

ANNOTATION

Rick, a fourteen-year-old foster child, escapes from a juvenile detention facility near Las Vegas and travels to Canyonlands National Park in Utah where he meets a bird biologist working on a project to reintroduce condors to the wild.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Just fourteen, Rick Walder is alone, on the run, and desperate. Stowing away in the back of a truck, he suddenly finds himself at a dead end, out in the middle of nowhere. The Maze. In this surreal landscape of stark redrock spires and deep sandstone canyons, Rick stumbles into the remote camp of Lon Perigrino, a bird biologist who is releasing fledgling California condors back into the wild. Intrigued by the endangered condors and the strange bearded man dedicated to saving them, Rick decides to stay on. When two men with a vicious dog drive up in a battered old Humvee, Rick discovers that Lon and his birds are in grave danger. Will he be able to save them? In a heart-stopping adventure infused with the spirit of the Icarus myth and a boy's dreams of flight, Will Hobbs brings readers a unique tale of identity, personal growth, and friendship.

01 Blue Spruce Award Masterlist (YA Cat.), 01 AZ Young Reader Award Masterlist (Teen Bks cat.), 00-01 Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Masterlist (Gr. 6-8), 00-01 Black-Eyed Susan Award Masterlist, 00-01 Minnesota's Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award Masterlist, 00-01 South Carolina Book Award Nomination Masterlist (Grds 6-9), 00-01 Lone Star Reading List, 00-01 Utah Book Award (Gr. 7-12), 01 Washington State Evergreen YA Book Award Masterlist, 00-01 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Gr. 6-8), and 01 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominee Masterlist

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Christopher Moning

Rick Walker is on the run-from the law, from a series of foster homes, from a pair of gutless gun smugglers, and from the countless knocks that life has handed him ever since his grandmother died four years ago. After a daring escape from a corrupt youth detention center, Rick finds himself lost in the Maze section of Canyonlands National Park. Rick's luck begins to change when he encounters Lon Peregrino, a rough, grizzled loner who is a bird biologist. The two forge a deep bond as Rick aids Lon on his quest to return the endangered California condor to the wild. In this lightning-paced adventure, Rick begins to understand the power of trust and forgiveness. There are vivid descriptions of the condor and also of the arroyos, spires, and rock formations in Canyonlands. Anyone who has ever had a flying dream will thrill to Rick's breathless hang gliding experiences. In the rousing climactic scene Rick takes a desperate gamble and, like the fledgling condor, he learns how to fly solo.

Children's Literature - Sue Reichard

Author Will Hobbs' books are often on the Best Books for Young Adults list. His new book, The Maze, is also sure to be a winner with young teens. Rick Walker is 14, alone, on the run and desperate. Rick has been in foster homes all over the state of California. He has been in six different schools in four years. He has never known either of his parents, and the grandmother who raised him has just died. Rick steals away in the back of a pickup truck and finds himself in a place called The Maze. Readers will devour this tale as Rick searches for himself and also a way out of his troubles.

VOYA - Sarah K. Herz

Fourteen-year-old Rick Walker runs away from Blue Canyon Youth Detention Center near Las Vegas, hides out in the rear of a camper truck, and finds himself "at the end of the world"-Canyonlands National Park in Utah. The truck delivers supplies to an isolated campsite, where bird biologist Lon Peregrino is feeding and observing fledgling condors recently released in the area. Rick is afraid that Lon will notify the authorities, but Lon proves to be the best person Rick could hope to meet. Rick has been in a series of foster homes, and does not trust adults-they have let him down too often. Lon does not pry into Rick's past; he accepts Rick's help in tracking and feeding the condors, and teaches Rick hang-gliding. Gradually Rick trusts and respects Lon, and tells Lon about his past. When Rick risks his life to save Lon, he learns what it means to care about another human being. Through his relationship with Lon, Rick is ready to become responsible for his actions and prepare for his future. Hobbs has written an exciting adventure story about a teenager who changes his negative attitude about rules, adults, and authority. Rick is a richly-textured character who reveals his curiosity about the condors, his appreciation of the Canyonlands, his theory about the Icarus myth, and his realization that his anger and self-pity will not help him mature. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P M J (Hard to imagine it being better written, Broad general YA appeal, Middle School-defined as grades 6 to 8 and Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9).

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-Fourteen-year-old Rick Walker feels that his life is a maze. He's been bounced around from one foster family to another and is sent to a detention center for hard-core juvenile offenders after committing a petty offense. After he reports corruption at the facility, the boy is forced to flee for his life and ends up in an isolated part of Utah's canyon country, near an area called the Maze. Here he forms a friendship with Lon, a biologist who is trying to reintroduce condors into the wild. The two work together, observing and assisting the birds, and Lon teaches Rick to hang glide. When they run afoul of a pair of nasty antigovernment types who are hiding a cache of weapons in the area, their lives are placed in danger. Certain elements of the plot are pretty conventional, appearing in countless young adult novels (troubled teen runs away and finds redemption with wise friend in a remote area). What sets this book apart is the inclusion of fascinating details about the condors and hang gliding, especially the action-packed description of Rick's first solo flight above the canyons in the face of an approaching thunderstorm. Many young readers will find this an adventure story that they can't put down.-Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL

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