Finish Lines

Gr 10 Up–Miranda Moore is a girl with a plan. She’s determined to ace her junior year and perfect her transcripts for Ivy League applications. Unfortunately, the pressure from school, clubs, and insecurities catches up to her, and she burns out. After her parents demand Miranda take a break from everything, she sets her eyes on competing in the Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile canoe race, with her grandfather. At first, training for the race seems like little more than an excellent way to gain experiences that Miranda can use for her college essays. However, she quickly finds that the race is more than rowing and that she needs to learn how to be resilient whenever the river changes direction. Over the course of the book, lessons are imparted as ­Miranda’s experiences refute her notion that life is supposed to follow the path she neatly paved for herself. The use of colors emphasizes the mood and the tone throughout the narrative, starting with highlighting elements of depression through visuals of the bodies of water, and ending with components of happiness and blue skies. Miranda is white.