Zenith - Softcover

After an early career as a teacher and freelance feature writer for major Scottish newspapers, Julie Bertagna has quickly established a reputation as an author of powerful and original fiction for young people. EXODUS, her first novel for Macmillan, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award and won the Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award and the Angus Award. THE OPPOSITE OF CHOCOLATE was shortlisted for the Book Trust Teenage Prize 2004. Julie lives in Glasgow with her husband and daughter.

*Starred Review* In this sequel to Exodus (2008), 16-year-old Mara guides a ship of refugees north from New Mungo, hoping to find safe haven in Greenland now that their globally warmed world is almost completely submerged. Upon arrival their ship is sunk and they are enslaved by the barbaric inhabitants of Ilira, who live in apartment-style caves shuttered by automobile doors scavenged from the sea. Eventually Mara and a few others escape, hiking to an interior valley with a glacial lake where they settle permanently. Although told alternately by Mara, Fox, and Tuck, this is mostly Mara’s story—a plucky, imperfect heroine leading the way to an uncertain future in a hostile world filled with inhabitants who do whatever it takes to survive. Still, signs of hope emerge: Mara’s (and Fox’s) baby is born just as the group discovers their promised land; Fox finds encouragement in his campaign against world corruption; and Tuck rehabilitates himself from pirate and thief to builder of fantastic bridges. Sadly, Mara and Fox can no longer communicate (Tuck has stolen part of her cyberwizz, a tool for surfing the Weave), but with a forthcoming final volume in the works, fans can still hope for a reunion. Grades 6-10. --Kay Weisman