Darron Contryman

Zandra's Journey Darron Contryman

In this travel novel, a girl named Zandra must spend her summer on a journey around the world seeking wisdom and advice for the fourteen-year-old Prince Arcadia, whose life is miserable because he is completely controlled by his overseers until he can prove that he is wise. During Zandra's journey, she meets Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Alexandre Dumas, Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo, Thomas Jefferson, Vincent Van Gogh, Walt Disney, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ayn Rand, Mark Twain, Soichiro Honda, Akio Morita, the Dalai Lama, the Zen poet Ryokan, Confucius, Aristotle, Epictetus, Cicero, and others. All of these great minds are alive at the same time, and sometimes even in the same conversation. The story begins one day in the Alps of Liechtenstein when Zandra arrives at her part-time job at the castle horse-stables and panics when she finds out that Waterfall, the horse that she has worked long and hard to raise so well, has been chosen by Prince Arcadia to be taken away. If Zandra will help him gain his freedom by getting him the wisdom he needs, he will give her the horse. Zandra agrees, and sets off around the world for advice from the world's wisest philosophers, writers, businessmen and thinkers. Zandra's encounters and conversations will benefit readers of any age by teaching their actual advice, practical wisdom, and useful philosophy.