On the way home from a track meet, the bus carrying sixteen- year-old Jessica's team collided with a car. The accident leaves Jessica in the hospital -- minus one leg. Jessica had dreamed of going to college on a track scholarship. She had been the team's star. Now, she's not sure she even wants to live. Her doctors push her to do physical therapy, so she can receive a prosthetic leg. At first, she can't imagine ever walking again, but her best friend and her track coach are determined to help her do even more than that. They don't want her to give up THE RUNNING DREAM.

In a rare departure from the humor and sense of adventure that marks her other work (such as the Sammy Keyes Mysteries and the Shredderman series), Van Drannen takes the serious issues surrounding a trauma head-on in this one. The reader is right there with Jessica when her father takes the pill bottle away after she shows signs of painkiller addiction, and we're not allowed to flinch when she has to clean her stump. The portrayal is so real that I found myself wandering around my own house wondering how I would navigate it if I were Jessica.

By letting us see Jessica's weaknesses, Van Drannen creates a well-rounded character that we can pull for. Before the accident, Jessica had been barely aware of wheelchair ramps and the disabled kids forced to use them. Now that she has become disabled herself, she is ashamed of her former view and wants to help others to see past disabilities to the real, worthwhile individuals who are dealing with them. While she's got to learn to accept help, she doesn't want pity. She wants to stand on her own two feet -- even if one of them is a prosthesis.