Mark’s old paperback suddenly becomes a map, holding clues to his father’s possible whereabouts.Īfter Mark and his mother arrive in Venice, you can divide this book into two sections. Mark receives frequent letters from his father, but when correspondence suddenly stops, he boards a plane to Venice with his mother in search of answers. Before leaving, he gives Mark a worn copy of The Travels of Marco Polo and says that he will be following the same route as the famous explorer.

Like Marco Polo, he wishes to meet and live with the desert people. Mark Hearn’s father is a teacher of anthropology and about to embark on a trip to the Gobi Desert. Marco’s journey bolsters Mark’s courage and whets his appetite for risk and adventure, and for exposure to life in all its immense and fascinating variety. Doc describes Marco’s travels and the boy finds himself falling under the spell of the story that has transfixed the world for centuries. To distract Mark from his wheezing and to pass the long Venetian night, the Doc starts to spin for Mark the tale of Marco Polo.

That’s when Doc Hornaday, an old friend of Mark’s father, makes a house call, along with a massive black Tibetan mastiff called Boss.

Anxious about his father and upset about spending Christmas away from home, Mark gets a bad asthma attack in the middle of the night. His mother decides they must go to Venice to petition the agency that sent Mark’s father to send out a search party. Newbery Honor–winning author Alan Armstrong’s latest book!Įleven-year-old Mark's anthropologist father has disappeared in the Gobi desert while tracing Marco Polo’s ancient route from Venice to China.

The adventures of the young marco polo