In late 1800s Minnesota, 13-year-old Ben Ward goes to work with his father in a lumber camp and signs up for a log drive with his friend Nevers, where together they endure freezing weather, dangerous rapids, logjams, storms, floods, and pioneer life in general.

The perfectly themed book for Lumberjack Days weekend, please help us welcome William Durbin and his latest, middle grade fiction: Dead Man’s Rapids. 

William Durbin is a writer and former teacher who lives on Lake Vermilion at the edge of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A winner of the Great Lakes Book Award and a two-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award, he has published eleven novels for young readers, including The Broken Blade, Wintering, and, also published by Minnesota, Song of Sampo Lake, Blackwater Ben, and The Darkest Evening.

Barbara Durbin is a lifelong educator who has worked as an elementary school teacher and a teacher of gifted and talented programs.