Away (2025) is a middle-grade novel in verse by Megan E. Freeman, author of the New York Times bestseller Alone. A companion to Alone, this story explores the same catastrophic event from a different angle. When a mysterious, imminent threat triggers a mandatory statewide evacuation of Colorado, four kids—aspiring journalist Harmony, young filmmaker Teddy, future doctor Ashanti, and rancher’s son Grandin—are forced into a relocation camp. Thrown together by circumstance, they form an alliance and begin to suspect that the official narrative is a cover for a massive conspiracy, leading them on a search for the truth. The novel explores themes of The Power of a Free Press in Combating Disinformation, Community as a Source of Resilience, and Coming of Age as Learning to Question Authority.

Freeman’s work often uses verse to explore themes of survival and resilience. Her debut, Alone, won numerous honors, including the Colorado Book Award and over a dozen state children’s book awards. Away continues this exploration through a multi-perspective, mixed-media format that combines free verse with news articles, screenplay excerpts, and official bulletins to tell its story. The narrative is set in the same shared universe as Alone, and the two books are directly linked through the character of Ashanti, who is best friends with Alone’s protagonist, Maddie. The novel grounds its fictional plot in the real-world environmental conflicts over water scarcity in the American West, using the ongoing struggle for water rights as a plausible motive for the large-scale deception the children uncover.

This guide is based on the 2026 Aladdin paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of illness, death, and animal death.

Plot Summary

The second book in the Alone series, Away is a middle-grade novel in verse told through alternating perspectives. The story follows four young protagonists whose lives converge after a mysterious mass evacuation of Colorado forces them into a relocation camp, where they uncover a vast conspiracy.

In a prologue framed as a letter to her Aunt Beckie, an international journalist, Harmony Addams-Paul reflects on the events that upended her life. No one had any idea what was coming, but even if they had, she doubts it would have made a difference.

Radio broadcasts establish a Colorado gripped by drought, record-breaking heat, military convoys, and curfews. Four characters are introduced: Ashanti Johnson, a 12-year-old swimmer in Millerville who frames her world through Greek mythology; Grandin Stone, a 14-year-old rancher near Feathermore whose family struggles with worsening drought; Harmony, a 12-year-old aspiring journalist in Redhawk who lives with her minister mother and younger sister Pax after her parents’ divorce; and Teddy Brenkert, an 11-year-old aspiring filmmaker in Spruce who lives with his grandmother, Gram, and works at her dinner theater.

At 12:01 am on Saturday, an imminent threat alert triggers mandatory evacuations across Colorado. All four families are roused and ordered to leave. At embarkation points, cell phones are confiscated; authorities claim the devices have been compromised. Teddy secretly saves his SIM card. Grandin’s father, a fiercely self-reliant rancher, refuses to board the transport and stays behind to protect the ranch. The evacuees are transported east with no understanding of where they are going or why.

They arrive at Camp Rogers, a Cold War-era military base near the Kansas border. General Giles of the Colorado National Guard announces that unspecified threats have prompted an evacuation of all noncombatants from certain zones and that all cell towers and internet providers have been disabled. Three weeks later, a bulletin claims that toxic chemicals have been identified in the evacuation zones, requiring continued quarantine.

Harmony and Teddy meet in the mess hall and begin collaborating as journalists, with Pax, Harmony’s imaginative younger sister who is obsessed with The Wizard of Oz, joining their team. Ashanti’s mother, Dr. Johnson, establishes an infirmary and quickly begins to suspect that patients’ symptoms arise from fear and stress rather than contamination. Over the following months, the kids bond through caring for a litter of Labrador puppies Grandin discovers in a remote, abandoned area of camp that Pax dubs the “Emerald City” (155), a long green hut with an arched roof. Grandin nurses the runt of the litter back to health and names him Popcorn. They also befriend Ramón, an elderly former state capitol facilities manager who now serves as a driver for officials and becomes a trusted confidant to the children.

Five months in, camp authorities announce the construction of temporary schools, signaling that the evacuation will not end anytime soon. Harmony observes people speaking in “months” instead of “days” (199). Soon, the children decide to seek the answers that the officials refuse to offer. Returning to the Emerald City hut, the kids discover office supplies and a copy machine. Harmony proposes they become muckrakers, journalists who investigate and expose corruption, and launches the Camp Rogers Gazette. During a bonding session, each character shares a personal truth: Ashanti dreams of becoming a doctor; Teddy reveals that his parents, both aged 30, died in a car crash when he was a baby, driving him to make a film before he reaches that age; Harmony confesses her ambition to be the greatest journalist of the 21st century; and Grandin says he simply wants the nightmare to end.

At 17 months, a press conference shows devastating footage of familiar towns dilapidated and abandoned, with all vegetation dead. Governor Clark announces that the zones may remain uninhabitable for years. Protests erupt. Grandin secretly leaves camp by hiding in Ramón’s car trunk, determined to find his father. After days walking across the plains, he is picked up by a kid called Mustang, who tells him the devastation is exaggerated or invented and that a network of kids in the mountains communicates with one another. The truck crashes, and Grandin returns to camp with a broken arm and concussion, having failed to reach Feathermore.

Teddy makes a critical discovery: Reviewing the official footage frame by frame, he spots inconsistent shadows indicating CGI (computer-generated imagery) and concludes that the footage was digitally altered. Combining this with Mustang’s testimony, the kids examine a map of the Eldorado River Basin and realize all evacuated towns lie along the river or its tributaries. Grandin proposes that water, more valuable than oil or gas amid drought, is the true motive: Someone is stealing the river. The kids try to alert adults, but no one takes them seriously. Ramón, who already suspected something was wrong, agrees to eavesdrop on commanders.

To obtain proof, the kids use Teddy’s saved SIM card in an old phone to contact Mustang. They print copies of the Gazette on bright orange paper, roll them into a sealed tube, and walk Popcorn to a remote guard post. Grandin throws the tube past the gate, then signals Popcorn to retrieve it and carry it to Mustang’s contact. Mustang’s network will gather video of people in the supposedly uninhabitable zones holding the dated orange papers as evidence.

As the government pushes relocation, the kids identify two figures present at every press conference: a woman with a jeweled bear pin and a man in a dark suit. When Governor Clark introduces California state senator Susan Colman as a consultant, the kids recognize her as the bear-pin woman and connect California’s severe drought to a motive for water theft, since the Eldorado River’s route terminates in that state. Mustang sends an SD card, smuggled into camp inside a fake plaster cast on Grandin’s arm. The footage shows intact mountain towns with residents waving orange Gazette copies, plus drone footage of a massive pipeline project at the river’s headwaters by Collier Marine Construction, Inc. Research reveals that the company’s board includes Victor Albus, the dark-suited man, who serves as deputy director of the Colorado Investigation Bureau and is married to General Giles. The footage also shows Grandin’s father alive outside the Feathermore Community Hall. Grandin is overcome with relief.

Teddy devises a plan for maximum exposure. Gram’s theater troupe hosts a Fourth of July celebration on the camp quad before an audience that includes Governor Clark, General Giles, and Senator Colman. Mustang’s network ensures that the film screens simultaneously at every evacuation camp statewide. Harmony delivers opening remarks comparing the evacuees to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and the film progresses from camp life montages to the official devastation footage, then cuts to Mustang’s smuggled video of intact towns. It concludes with drone footage of the pipeline and an image of Grandin’s father. Harmony reads the latest Gazette article presenting the evidence. Pandemonium erupts across every camp in the state.

In a retrospective letter, Harmony describes the aftermath: Aunt Beckie follows the money, uncovering kickbacks between Senator Colman and Collier Marine Construction, secret recordings of Colman discussing water as key to California’s future, and bribes tied to Clark, Albus, and Giles. Investigations follow, but it takes another full year before evacuees return home. Ashanti reveals that her friend Maddie was left behind during the evacuation and is now missing, connecting the story to the companion novel Alone. Harmony reflects that the stolen years left permanent scars but that their band of muckrakers succeeded because they believed in one another: “Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything” (458). An epilogue reveals the protagonists’ adult lives: Teddy becomes a documentary filmmaker, Ashanti a trauma surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, Harmony a Peabody Award-winning Washington Post correspondent, and Grandin an army environmental engineer planning to return to Colorado to ranch with his father. All four remain friends.