Seven Words for Sand

2005 EPPIE Award Finalist for Best Young Adult! "You’re going to cross the Sahara Desert? It’s dangerous. They rob tourists and slit their throats..." Nick Bridger reluctantly joins his news correspondent father in the Sahara Desert. He scoffs at his friends’ worries. He thinks the expedition to film the nomadic Tuareg tribesmen--the Blue Men--will be boring…but he soon discovers it is dangerous and deadly. When Nick and his father are deserted by their guides, and then his father breaks his leg, Nick must go for help. Alone and inexperienced, he loses direction and becomes lost in the hottest place on earth. Rescue comes from a most unlikely source--a fourteen-year-old Tuareg boy named Tarlift. Tarlift is desperate to find his own family, who are in the opposite direction Nick wants to go. But he leaves Nick no option but to come along with him or die. Nick’s desert education is about to begin. Soon he will learn about the mysterious Akhaya, desert bandits, and seven words for sand...