Emily in Khara Koto

Emily, a fourteen year old New England girl in the mid-1920s, is always looking for adventure. Once, when four English con men attempted to steal rare jewels found in a discovered pyramid, Emily's keen eyes and sharp mind helped in their capture and they were placed in hard labor on an ocean liner shoveling coal into its large furnaces. But they escaped, hid out among the passengers, and swam ashore when the liner docked in New York Harbor. The youngest one, Nutts, however, left them and started afresh as an honest young man living in New York City. But the others' lives and crimes continued. Now Emily sets off to explore Mongolia with its rivers and high deserts and its colorful yurts and shaggy ponies. But it holds a secret that could change the way of life for all its people. Gerald G. Hotchkiss is a retired magazine publisher who has written several children's and young adult books including: "Emily and the Lost City of Ergup," the first Emily story; "Zoe and the Pirate Ship Revenge" and "Claire at the Crocker Farm," both from Sunstone Press; "Life Begins at Seventy" and "Music Makers, A Guide to Singing in a Chorus" from Sunstone Press; and has illustrated "One Hundred Million Wombats."