(Week 3, Young Adult: Boys and Books) Who Do YOU Want By Your Side After The World Ends?

 

This is an imaginative story of a young boy who lives with his family after the world has come to an end. The world's population rapidly decreasing as only 1% are still able to conceive and bare children. Stranger still, dogs seem to be just as scarce as humans at this point with each liter born having less and less females to birth the next generations of puppies. Griz, the young man telling this tale, lives on a secluded island off the coast of what we know today as Scotland. With Griz are his parents, sister and brother, one sister having died in an accident a few years before the story takes place. His father is a tinker of old world machines and utilizes an old windmill for electricity. Griz's mother is a women who used to be lively and a lover of book, but when their daughter died, she fell and hit her head on a rock while being struck with immeasurable grief and can no longer speak or perform her usual daily tasks. Griz and his family often "go a'viking" to several of the surrounding islands that have long been abandoned to scavenge and collect materials that they need to survive. Along with them go their faithful companions, their dogs. Griz's two dogs are named Jess and Jip, and they are terrier mixed breeds who love Griz fiercely.  One day, Griz's family is visited by a stranger named Brand, who trick them with intriguing tales of his life at sea and ends up drugging them to the point where he can take what he wants which just happens to include Griz's female dog, Jess. At the moment of realization of what just happened, Griz follows after Brand in the heat of seeking revenge and taking back what belongs to him. On his journey to reclaim his beloved dog, Griz and Jip travel after this stranger who seems to be just as dangerous as he is charming. Along the way Griz comes to realize just how removed his life has been from the rest of the world up to this point. He wonders if humans deserved to survive at all and just how much the cost of losing something/one you truly love can affect the rest of your life. I would love to go into all the details that this wonderful book has to offer, but at the request of the author, I shall let you find out the rest for yourself!

"It'd be a kindness to other readers -- not to say this author -- if the discoveries made as you follow Griz's journey into the ruins of our world remained a bit of a secret between us . . ."

--C. A. Fletcher, Author

Discussion and Classroom Applications

This book would be a great way to get any of my reluctant male students to get lost in reading. Along with teaching this in my English class, this would also translate well into history and science as well. I cannot wait to start recommending this book to my students!