Jennifer Bradbury

Jennifer Bradbury writes fiction for teen and middle-grade readers, frequently pairing movement through a landscape with questions about family history. Take, published by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books in 2023, follows recent high-school graduate Cara as clues left by her missing father draw her into the Cascade Mountains. Her former boyfriend Nat joins the search, and their rock-climbing knowledge becomes essential as photographs, maps, guidebooks, and coded notes point toward an older story. Bradbury interweaves Cara’s present journey with diary passages from the 1940s, connecting one family mystery to the history of Japanese American exclusion during the Second World War. Take therefore combines outdoor adventure, historical fiction, and a contemporary coming-of-age narrative. Bradbury is also a teacher and climber, experience that supports the novel’s attention to routes, risk, preparation, and partnership. The book’s emotional center is not simply solving a puzzle; Cara must decide what she wants after graduation while reassessing both her father and the relationship she believed she had left behind.