Take by Jennifer Bradbury
Skagit County author Jennifer Bradbury’s most recent novel for teens is a mystery/thriller set in the peaks of the North Cascades. Cara just graduated from high school and is working multiple part-time jobs to earn enough for her gap year, which she intends to spend climbing in Patagonia. She’s looking forward to the chance to push herself physically on some high-altitude climbs and forget about her painful breakup with Nat, who’s also a climber.
Nat’s back in town for the summer, and Cara’s doing her best to avoid him, and to avoid thinking about her dad who blew off her graduation and whom she hasn’t spoken with in a long time. When Cara realizes that her father is missing, she heads out to his remote trailer and discovers it’s in shambles — climbing guides strewn everywhere, strange coded notes stuck on every surface — but no climbing gear, and no dad.
Cara realizes that her father’s depression and mental illness may have led him to do something extreme — and that she will need help to find him. Reluctantly, she enlists Nat’s help to decipher the clues and track down her father.
Climbing lore and legend factor heavily in this quick read: The climbing guides Cara’s father was consulting were all written by the accomplished and eccentric mountaineer Beckett Friedrichs (a thinly veiled stand-in for infamous “dirtbag” Fred Beckey). Teens unfamiliar with climbing gear and techniques will pick up some new vocabulary, and avid climbers will find only minor points to quibble over.
Bradbury weaves in some history as well, alternating between Cara’s first-person narrative and diary entries from an unnamed male climber in the 1940s whose young love is thwarted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. government’s decision to incarcerate Japanese-Americans. As Cara and Nat race to find Cara’s father, they get more clues about his past and his family history that help explain his current mental state.
Cara is an inspiring heroine — gritty, determined, flawed but loyal. Her off-again, on-again relationships with Nat and with her father come across as realistic and age-appropriate. The ending reaches a satisfying pinnacle although some may find it abrupt.
Bradbury is the author of six young adult novels as well as the “Zach and Lucy” series for younger readers. Her children’s picture book about Nek Chand, an Indian sculptor who built the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, won a Washington State Book Award. She lives in Burlington.
Teen readers looking for a little action/adventure, a little romance, and a little history with a Pacific Northwest setting will find it all in “Take.” Older audiences or fanatic climbers may also want to watch “Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey,” which is available at wcls.org on DVD.
Christine Perkins is executive director of the Whatcom County Library System, wcls.org.
(Originally published in Cascadia Daily News, Monday, September 23, 2024.)