Across the risen sea by Bren MacDibble
Allen & Unwin, 2020. ISBN: 9781760526054.
(Age: 11+) Highly recommended. Marta, Neoma and Jag are going to the
sunken city to scavenge what they can from the tall buildings, now
mostly underwater. Curious and ferociously independent, Neoma takes
the stairs, excited by the writing on one of the floors she comes
across. She has heard of such places where people sit at tables and
others cook and serve them food, but now, it means there may be
salvageable cans, enough to sustain them over the long hot summer.
A stunning dystopian story, Neoma and her mother are part of a small
community on an island, one of many formed after the seas rise.
Strangers from another settlement, called the Valley of the Sun by
the islanders, came one day and cut down some trees, erecting a
pole with a flashing light on top and guys to hold it fast.
Neoma, ever curious, digs one of the boxes at the base of one of the
ties and is badly burnt.
Coming back from their scavenging, they come across the interloper's
boat, now derelict, and tow it back to their island. One girl is
still alive and they nurse her back to health, with only Marta able
to understand her language. But the islanders are concerned lest the
others think they killed her companion and consequently Jag is
kidnapped by people from the Valley of the Sun as retribution. Neoma
follows in the catamaran but is soon taken over by a pirate. She
steals back her boat, but the girl from the pirate's boat comes
aboard, now less one finger, and they sail on to rescue Jag with a
crocodile and shark in tow.
A dystopian mystery by the author of award winning The
dog runner (2018) and How
to bee (2017), this tale is suffused with future
warnings, Neoma's island rejecting the trappings of modern life, but
equally needing some vestiges of it to survive. The ominous green
clouds, the disease which befell the nations, the rising seas, a
society fragmented into small islands of survivors, all suspicious
of each other, point to a world gone awry, and a future which seems
all too imminent for thoughtful readers. Teacher's
notes are available from the publisher's website.
Themes; Global warming, Climate change, Dystopian novel.
Fran Knight