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Spark

Book Synopsis

In a world struggling to exist, only the strongest will survive. The explosive, action-packed new adventure from the award-winning author of Kick and Pop!

Ash has always lived in Last Village, lonely since the day his father left and never came back.

The world is unbearably hot, water is drying up, and life is hard. After a vicious thunderstorm, Ash wakes to find that the village’s water has completely run out, and all the other villagers have mysteriously disappeared.

Accompanied by the outcast Bronwyn, Ash sets off in search of water, for answers about what happened to the villagers, with hope they might find ‘The Kingdom’ – a rumoured land to the north where life still flourishes.

Ash and Bronwyn have to survive a journey across an arid landscape, discovering that other people out there are even more dangerous than the lightning strikes that follow them. Then they reach The Wall – beyond it, something impossible.

Lying in wait are the answers Ash is searching for, and maybe even the truth about what happened to his father. If only he could get past The Wall…

Sometimes all it takes is just one spark.

Our Review Panel says...

I have enjoyed both of Mitch Johnson’s previous books, each of them being entirely different from each other and this one. This one is set in a dystopian future with a dose of climate change warning thrown in.

The adventure is both exciting and terrifying – in fact, the climate that they live in and the few remnants of humanity they encounter are equally frightening. It was such an exciting read that I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down because I had to know what was going to happen next.

Ash and Bronwyn are interesting characters because in some ways the reader never knows very much about them; you only know about how they behave and how they act, little else. Up until the crisis point, their worlds have been very narrow, consisting of only their respective villages – so it is a very big deal for them to leave and travel elsewhere. The stories of the past are like myths, and they never really know how the actions of their ancestors have impacted their lives – but the reader does.

Mitch Johnson intended the book to be a reminder to his readers to not mess things up for future generations and in that I think he succeeds. Another excellent book from Mitch Johnson.