TheRunning Dream, by Wendelin Van Draanen, is a great family book, constructed out of love, passion and desperate struggle to fix the problem at hand. Jessica is a normal teenager. Other than the fact that she's a great runner who just beat the track teams latest score for the four-hundred meter dash, and as soon as she touches the finish line, it seems like a perfect day, like nothing is impossible. At that moment Jessica knows she will be a runner for life, but will a fatal accident get in the way? On the way back from the best track meet ever, the bus is crashed into by a man hauling cars with bad brakes. Everyone is badly shook up, but at least they didn't die like poor Lucy, or loose part of their leg... like Jessica. Jessica, from that moment, knows she's never going to run again, EVER. She is downcast by the idea, like a someone has just pushed your head into water, and slowly it was getting harder to breath. From then on, Jessica decides her life is over. Or is it? The team is now going to raise money for a prostheses running leg. But it costs $20,000. How can a small track team raise that much to get Jessica running again? And deep inside, Jessica is a little scared to run again, for fear that she won't do as well... or worse. It won't work, she'll fail. You'll have to find out Jessica's destiny in The Running Dream.
