By Michael Grey

ISBN 9780648815433

RRP $19.99

To be published by Eagle Books, an imprint of Christmas Press, March 2022

About the book:

To Matthew, the village he lives in, his friends, their families and the jungle which surrounds it is the entire world. What’s beyond that great green canopy with its host of dangerous animals is a mystery, but a mystery only he has any interest in solving. Then one day a stranger walks out of the forest, bringing with her questions and a deadly virus, and the village elders are forced to reveal their knowledge for the outside world.

When the first expedition to find a cure doesn’t return, Matthew and his friends must journey into the unknown wilderness before the virus kills everyone he loves. But what he finds out there changes everything he thought he knew about his home.

A gripping, powerful speculative fiction novel for young adults, by a talented new author.

About the author:

Michael Grey is a writer of children’s stories, science fiction, fantasy, contemporary, and horror, and does not see why all those genres shouldn’t be combined. He has had stories published in print, online and in audio, and has been shortlisted for the Parsec and Aurealis Horror novella awards. When he’s not writing stories Michael can usually be found thinking about stories and spending time with his family.

Children of the Wild is his first published novel.

About the illustrator:

Lorena Carrington is a photographic artist and book illustrator based in regional Victoria. She is published in Australia with Serenity Press, and internationally with Kane Miller (US) and Wydawnictwo Tadam (Poland). She has also been commissioned for covers by publishers such as Swan River Press (Ireland), Eagle Books, and the Australian Fairy Tale Society. Lorena exhibits her work in galleries around the country. She presents at literary and arts festivals around Australia, and visits schools and libraries to give talks and hold workshops on illustration, books and story. She is the recipient of the 2020 Australian Fairy Tale Society award, for her ‘outstanding contribution to the field of Australian Fairy Tales.’

Selected reviews:

Enjoyed this book immensely. The structure of short chapters gave the narrative an episodic feel, and made the pages fly by. The coming-of-age emphasis in the first half was perfectly balanced with the hero’s journey in the second. Satisfying read! (Brendan Colley, Goodreads)

This book starts as a coming-of-age story focusing on two young men from a small village in the jungle. Although time is taken to set up the world they live in, the reader is rarely inundated with exposition and backstory to the point of boredom, as the adventure also starts early and is essential to the world building. The pacing beats in the story are such that even when things do slow down a bit, it’s a welcome pace. Once the larger adventure starts, I found myself wanting to read “just one more chapter”, as many good books invoke a similar urge. The way the mystery of the world unravels is rather organic, and there weren’t really any points in the story that came across as either trite or contrived. There were no MacGuffins to speak of, as each distinct story beat served a purpose to the characters and their motivations. Each revelation came with a new motivator to continue driving the story forward….All in all, this was a good book and I’m excited to see what comes next from the author! (Ken Craig, Goodreads)

Matthew and his friends live in a village surrounded by a jungle. It’s the only world they have ever known and as far as they know there is nothing else beyond it. But Matthew ventures further then anyone else and is always curious of what might be out there. One day a stranger walks out of the forest. Where did she come from? Then a virus arrives in the village and the elders must finally explain what they have been hiding all these years… With the illness spreading, an expedition is sent to bring back an antidote. When they don’t return, Matthew and some of the younger villagers must journey into the unknown to try to find them. What Matthew and his friends find will change their view of the world forever. But can they help the people they find, or will they end up being killed themselves? This a wonderful novel that will enthrall readers from the first page. Matthew is an intriguing character, and his friendship with Adam and Alex is central to the story. The village is a world of simple living with almost no machinery or technology, and when they venture outside of it they find a world beyond their imagination, but in ruins. This is a book that will stay with you long after you put it down, and really makes you think. It would make a great classroom text for Year 8 and up (Lamont Books)

This is an exciting and impressive first novel. There are waves of dramatic moments within a dystopian or speculative-style fantasy set in an unidentified world that has declined beyond imagination. Sometimes it has the feel of a ‘Hunger Games’ survival tale with bows and arrows, set within a world-gone-wrong, and sometimes it is more Sci-fi with coming-of-age overtones. The fact that the younger characters know only the world of their community means that they do not have language or social constructs of many things well known to current readers, and hearing their descriptions of technological or modern-world features has the quality of the ‘primitive’ tribal man being brought into the modern world. Sometimes this may confuse younger teen readers, but it is clever in its capacity for making us see things in new ways. The main character, Matthew is likeable in an aloof and reserved way, and his relationships with friends and the older community member, Rona, is mature and sometimes surprising. The quest-like aspect of the final part of the story is also compelling and distressing and has movie-like qualities. This will be a book that will be worth recommending to YA lovers of Dystopian and Sci-fi. (Read Plus)