Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

A "reminder of why we read fiction to begin with" (San Francisco Chronicle), Peace Like a River is Leif Enger's extraordinary debut novel--a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world--with over one million copies sold Raised on tales of cowboys and pirates, eleven-year-old Reuben Land has little doubt that miracles happen all around us, and that it's up to us to "make of it what we will." Reuben was born with no air in his lungs, and it was only when his father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that his lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature. The quiet Midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Davy, the oldest son, kills two marauders who have come to harm the family; unlike his father, he is not content to le