By Gazzotti & Vehlmann
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849181969
This is a relatively new, and award-winning, series focusing on five children who awake to find that everyone they know and love – in fact, everyone in the city – has mysteriously disappeared, leaving them to fend for themselves. The children are made up of a talented tinkerer called Leila, the lonely Ivan, the quiet and studious Camille, the troubled Dodzi and, the youngest member of the group, Terry. All come from different backgrounds but are united in their need to survive in this empty and sometimes frightening new world.
Their first couple of days see them share some outlandish reasons for their predicament, but by and large the world around them is still the same – just devoid of people – so it’s something they seem to be able to cope with. But there are dangers out there, and the first serious one they encounter is hardly one you’d expect and it almost spells the end for them straight away.
There have been lots of post-apocolyptic style stories doing the rounds, from zombie plagues to hungry hoards to alien invasion aftermaths, and even children’s literature has strayed there with the likes of Charlie Higson’s The Enemy series. What’s refreshing about Alone is that it is aimed at a younger reader (not that an older one won’t enjoy it) and all it needs to make it work is the fear of having no-one to turn to, nobody to help and no routine to offer comfort. By removing the adult element from their lives the hazards of relatively everyday situations rapidly begin to stack up, and this is long before any harsh realities of a collapsed society (food shortages, winter) have even been addressed.
Gazzotti and Vehlmann have created a cast of sympathetic characters that, particularly with Dodzi, have you rooting or them from the beginning. My daughter really enjoyed it too, so definitely a book for all ages, and one we’re both looking forward to seeing what happens next.
And if you liked that: Try Over The Wall by Peter Wartman
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