The Dog Runner by Bren MacDibble

SHORTLISTED: CBCA 2020 Awards, Book of the Year, Younger Readers

'We're gonna starve if we stay here,' Emery said. 'If we're gonna go, best go now.'
And he said it like going was something easy. Like all we have to do is walk away.

Ella and her brother Emery are alone in a city that's starving to death. If they are going to survive, they must get away, upcountry, to find Emery's mum. But how can two kids travel such big distances across a dry, barren, and dangerous landscape? Well, when you've got five big doggos and a dry-land dogsled, the answer is you go mushing. But when Emery is injured, Ella must find a way to navigate them through rough terrain, and even rougher encounters with desperate people...