Fire on Headless Mountain by Iain Lawrence
2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 75; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2022.0360
ISSN1558-6766
Autores ResumoReviewed by: Fire on Headless Mountain by Iain Lawrence Wesley Jacques Lawrence, Iain Fire on Headless Mountain. Ferguson/Holiday House, 2022 [256p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780823446544 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780823452934 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 5-8 Eleven-year-old Virgil Pepper and his two older siblings are traveling along the "Boneyard" road in the family's old campervan, winding through a mountain range to scatter their mother's ashes at Little Lost Lake. When the van dies and a raging forest fire encroaches, however, the Peppers must survive as the heat steadily rises. The siblings almost immediately become separated, and Virgil draws upon the lessons from his late mother, a no-nonsense woman of science, who impressively instilled in him skills ranging from adhoc water filtration to how to eat bugs for survival. An omniscient narrator presents the survival challenges the kids face individually, including injuries, mountain lions, and stranger danger, while naturalistic accounts of the fire as a havoc-wreaking beast heighten the tension. Virgil is the focus of this richly imaginative survival adventure, but flashbacks to his mother's and a wacky uncle's teachings hint at dysfunctional family dynamics but are underexplored. The same can be said of the siblings' obvious need to mourn outside of a life-or-death scenario, and the conclusion offers little to believe they'll be afforded such opportunity in the future. Still, the unrelenting drama of their immediate peril makes for a nail-biting read, sure to satisfy fans of Paulsen's Hatchet. [End Page 358] Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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