书名：Banner in the Sky 天空中的旗帜
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数680L
作者：James Ramsey Ullman
出版社名称：HarperCollins
出版时间：1988
语种：英文 
ISBN：9780064470483
商品尺寸：10.6 x 1.5 x 17.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：288

★1955年纽伯瑞银奖作品
★美国图书馆协会优秀童书
阿尔卑斯山的从未被征服，而鲁迪的父亲是一个勇于挑战的，但却在途中不幸死去。16岁的鲁迪打心底敬佩素未谋面的父亲，并决心完成他的梦想。他以父亲的红衬衫作为旗帜，前去挑战这座地球上具挑战性的山脉。但在那之前，他要穿过禁忌堡垒，他的父亲就是在那里去世。他按照父亲的脚步一步步前进，现在，他必须依靠自己的力量登上后的，让旗帜飘扬在空中！
作者能生动讲述出登山者的故事，不但来源于他的想象，更得益于他的个人经历。他曾是一名新闻记者，旅行家和登山者，他的个人经历都在书中得以体现。
It stands unconquered, the last great summit of the Alps. Only one man has ever dared to approach the top, and that man died in his pursuit. He was Josef Matt, Rudi Matt’s father.
At sixteen, Rudi is determined to pay tribute to the man he never knew, and complete the quest that claimed his father’s life. And so, taking his father’s red shirt as a flag, he heads off to face the earth’s most challenging peak. But before Rudi can reach the top, he must pass through the forbidden Fortress, the gaping chasm in the high reaches of the Citadel where his father met his end. Rudi has followed Josef’s footsteps as far as they will take him. Now he must search deep within himself to find the strength for the final ascent to the summit—to plant his banner in the sky.
1955 Newbery Honor Book
Notable Children’s Books of 1954 (ALA)

Review
“Based upon the author’s personal experiences, with details from the original ascent of the Matterhorn, the story has authenticity, atmosphere, and excitement.”  — Booklist

James Ramsey Ullman (August 21, 1907 – July 5, 1971) was an American writer and mountaineer. He was born in New York City. He was not a high end climber, but his writing made him an honorary member of that circle. The books he wrote were mostly about mountaineering and geography.

In the heart of the Swiss Alps, on the high frontier between earth and sky, stands one of the great mountains of the world. To men generally it is known as the Citadel, but the people of the valley beneath it seldom call it by that name. They call it the Rudisberg—Rudi’s Mountain. And that is because, in the long-gone year of 1865, there lived in that valley a boy called Rudi Matt…
Most of the boys of the village were tall, broad and strongly built. Rudi was small and slim. But to make up for it, he was quick. In all his sixteen years he had probably never been quicker than on a certain summer morning when he slipped out the kitchen door of the Beau Site Hotel and into the alley beyond. When Teo Zurbriggen, the cook, turned from his stove to get a jar from the spice shelf, Rudi had been at his usual place, washing the breakfast dishes. But when, five seconds later, Old Teo turned back, his young helper was gone.
The cook muttered under his breath. But, almost at the same time, he smiled. He smiled because he knew what the boy was up to, and in his old heart he was glad.
Outside, Rudi did not follow the alley to the main street. He went in the other direction, came to a second alley, and ran quickly through the back part of the town. He made a wide detour around his mother’s house; another around the house of his uncle, Franz Lerner. Fortunately he met no one who knew him—or at least who knew he was supposed to be working in the kitchen of the Beau Site.
Soon he came to the edge of the town and a roaring brook. Across the brook lay a footbridge; but, instead of using it, he worked his way upstream around a bend and then crossed over, leaping agilely from boulder to boulder. From the far side he looked back. Apparently no one had seen him. Scrambling up the bank, he plunged through a clump of bushes, skirted a barnyard and picked up a path through the meadows. Here, for the first time, he stopped running. There was no living thing to be seen except a herd of grazing cows. The only sound was the tinkling of their bells.
The meadows rolled gently, tilting upward, and their green slope was sprayed with wildflowers. The path crossed a fence, over a rickety stile, then bent and rejoined the brook: and now the cowbells faded and there was again the sound of rushing water. Rudi walked on. Three or four times he passed people going in the opposite direction, but they were only Auslander—tourists—and nothing to worry about. Whatever guides were climbing that day were already high in the mountains. And any others who might have known and questioned him were back in the town or on their farms.