Written by Piers Torday
This inventive adventure is very British, which I at first was thinking would be a problem for our American clientele, but then I remembered that J.K. Rowling, Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, and many others have very British-feeling books, and they’ve had at least some minor success in the United States over the years.
On the one hand, this book has a slightly cartoonish feel because of the talking animals and because almost all the adults in this book are ridiculously mean, miserable people who, like many adults in Roald Dahl books, seem to just relish any opportunity to torture children, kill animals, etc.
On the other hand there are darker truly dystopian elements involving pandemics, violence, and corporate/government collusion to deceive the public and make money by destroying the natural world.
I would recommend this for fans of middle grade fantasy such as Harry Potter. It also would be a good choice for kids under 14 who are interested in reading dystopian science fiction books but who maybe aren’t quite ready for the more realistic and intense teen-on-teen violence and love triangles of The Hunger Games, &c.
Review by Joshua Whiting, Librarian, Granite School District Library Support
Rating: ★★★★✩ (4 stars)
Interest Level: Grades 4-8
The Last Wild
Written by Piers Torday
Viking Juvenile
336 pages
Release Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 9780670015542 (hardcover)
This is a great reminder that I need to finish this book and that it would be a great read for elementary kids that are interested in Maze Runner or Hunger Games, but not quite old enough for them. Thanks!