Sixteen-year-old Poppy doesn’t mind responsibility.
So when Poppy's widowed dad leaves her and her brother while he helps fight a distant wildfire, she’s confident she can manage. Her brother Jed has a disability and sometimes needs support, but there’s plenty to keep them both busy around the house and the farm. They’ll be fine. Then the wind changes and the wildfire heads straight for the farm. With no word from their dad, Poppy and Jed know they should get to safety, but what will they do with the farm animals? As the air fills with smoke and flames flicker on the horizon, Poppy and Jed must gather their unlucky collection of animals and make a desperate escape.
HiLo books are a great resource if they're done right, and this one is a great example. In just 96 pages, Gabrielle gives us all the background we need, sets up the story and brings us through a tense, exciting adventure to a resolution. It's really well done.
With the recent wildfires in LA, this will be a very topical story, though of course the author didn't know that at the time. The sense of tension and fear is very really; Poppy and Jed make some good decisions, but they also get lucky a couple of times, and things could easily have gone the other way.
Kids will love this for the tension, tight writing and exciting themes. A great choice.
Movie Recommendation: Only the Brave is the story of a group of firefighters when a wildfire breaks out, based on real events that happened in 2007 in Arizona.
Book Recommendation: Lies Like Wildfire is a YA book about a group of teens who ignore safety rules and accidentally spark a huge and deadly wildfire in California. It's a little older than Under Fire, but the sense of urgency and terror is the same.
Under Fire publishes on the 15th of April, 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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