By: Bren MacDibble
Genre: YFB - General fiction (Children's / Teenage)
Published by: Allen & Unwin
Published: 4 Feb 2019
ISBN: 9781760523572

Description

'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...


Review

This is a wonderful dystopian thriller set in a world where fungus has killed all the grass. No grass, no grains, no livestock, no bread, no rice...you get the picture!


Food is running out and people are turning on each other. Ella and Emery decide that to survive after both of their parents have disappeared, they must travel north across the country to Emery’s Mum’s farm.


With five malamutes at home, they decide to rig up a dry-land dog sled and go mushing. But this trip is dangerous and long. How will they survive in these desperate times?


Full of adventure and excitement, you will love the characters, particularly the feisty and determined Ella, as they journey through peril to try to find hope in a dangerous world.


With themes of survival, family and environmental disaster, this book is best suited to readers aged 10—14.


Reviewed by Rob