Every week from now until the end of August we are going to be looking at one of the books on the Guardian children's fiction prize longlist. This week it's Piers Torday's The Dark Wild
What's the book about?
In The Last Wild, Kester Jaynes -– who can't speak to people – discovers he can speak to animals and finds the last ones left alive in the world after a mysterious plague. With the help of his friend Polly - he brings them safely to the city of Premium, in search of a cure.
Now, in The Dark Wild, he thinks his adventure is over. He's wrong. Because below the sparkling city of Premium, deep underground, a dark wild remains: animals who believe the time is right to rise up against the humans they blame for the plague… And soon Kester realises: he is the only one who can stop them. Kester Jaynes saved the animals. Can he save the humans too?
Now watch this!
Piers Torday on why you should read and review The Dark Wild.
Find out more about Piers Torday and his books
The Dark Wild is the sequel to Piers Torday's first book The Last Wild. We've published some excellent reviews to that first book on the Guardian children's book site. Here's a review of the Last Wild by Lottie Longhanks which marked the book down as a winner of prizes!
Piers Torday's has also shared his dastardly top 10 animal villains in children's books.
And now… write your review!
The Guardian young critics competition is for all young readers to share their views on any of the longlisted books. Anyone aged 17 or under can enter by writing a review of no more than 200 words of one of the books longlisted for the prize. Individuals or school/library classes/bookgroups can enter and there are great prizes to be won including all the longlisted books. You can find out more and enter the competition here.
Find out more about the Guardian children's fiction prize book club and all the other authors we're going to be talking about over the summer. Next week… Kate Di Camillo and Flora and Ulysses.