<div> <div> <div> <div> <p>It&amp;#8217;s been two months since Travis&amp;#8217;s family moved to a development so new that it seems totally unreal. His parents are working harder now, to pay for it all, and Travis is left to fend for himself.</p> <p>There&amp;#8217;s one place, though, where Travis can still connect with his old life: the Salinas library. Travis and his family used to go there together every Saturday, but now he bikes to it alone, re-reading his favorite books.</p> <p>It&amp;#8217;s only natural that Travis likes the work of author John Steinbeck&amp;#8212;after all, Salinas is Steinbeck&amp;#8217;s hometown. But that can&amp;#8217;t explain why Travis is suddenly seeing Steinbeck&amp;#8217;s characters spring to life. There&amp;#8217;s the homeless man in the alley behind the library, the line of figures at the top of a nearby ridge, the boy who writes by night in an attic bedroom. Travis has met them all before&amp;#8212;as a reader. But why are they here now? And how?</p> <p>As Travis struggles to solve this mystery, budget cuts threaten his library. And so, he embarks on a journey through Steinbeck&amp;#8217;s beautiful California landscape, looking for a way to save his safe haven. It&amp;#8217;s only then that he begins to sort out fact from fiction, discovering the many ways a story can come alive&amp;#8212;and stumbling into a story Steinbeck might have started, and Travis needs to complete.</p> <p>Here is a mystery that delves deeply into the ways that books take us, one at a time, out into the vast world.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div>