I am trying to find a book I read a few years ago.

Grade 5-8-Grieving over the recent death of her 13-year-old brother from muscular dystrophy and the breakup of her parents' marriage that immediately followed, 12-year-old Dani runs away from home, intending to hike the Appalachian Trail, where her parents met 14 years earlier. Her mother tracks her down in the middle of her second night away, and Dani convinces her to accompany her-first for a few nights, then for a week, and finally for just over two months. Along with discoveries about the natural world, Dani also finds the capacity to hike and to heal emotionally. She improves her relationship with her mother and is able to return home with a changed attitude that will allow her to mend fractured friendships. This is a fairly standard coming-of-age novel with the added benefit of Dani's mother also growing and healing during their time together on the trail. Although they must return home and resume their normal lives, they vow to continue their hike in sections until they complete their goal, which ends the novel on a positive note and hints at a continued closeness between mother and daughter. The book's setting provides a unique backdrop to their mutual journeys of discovery, and an afterword supplies an abbreviated history of the 2163-mile Appalachian Trail. copyright ybarra-cgm
Ellen Fader, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Gr. 5-8. Twelve-year-old Dani has a plan when she runs away: she's determined to spend six months hiking the Appalachian Trail, from the trailhead at Springer Mountain, Georgia, to its end atop Mount Katahdin in Maine. On the 2,163-mile journey, she hopes to escape the grief of her brother's death and the wreckage of her parents' divorce. She is also retracing her family's beginnings: her parents met and married on the trail, and Dani, short for Katahdin, and her brother were named for famous trails' termini. Dani is furious when her mother finds her, but when Mother joins the hike and agrees to extend the trip, the journey becomes the means for Dani and her parents to begin the healing process and come to terms with their anger, grief, and fears. The story is remarkably affecting. As it unfolds, Bradley allows her gutsy heroine to manage extreme physical and emotional stresses in a way that's both believable and reassuring. Chris Sherman copyright ybarra-cgm
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition."