Rex Zero and the End of the World has just been released (February) by Farrar Straus Giroux in the US, and the reviews are very good, including starred reviews in both Publisher’s Weekly and the Horn Book.

Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review:

Rex Zero and the End of the World
Tim Wynne-Jones. FSG, $16 (192p) ISBN 0-374-33467-6

Wynne-Jones (A Thief in the House of Memory) draws on his own childhood to describe events leading up to the Cold War. In the summer of 1962, narrator Rex Harrison and his family move to Ottawa from Vancouver. The tension between the U.S. and Russia permeates everything this summer. A homeless man announces the end of the world on a placard, while others build bomb shelters. It seems only Rex's parents aren't taking the threats seriously. One evening, while walking his dog in the park, Rex's dog pulls him toward something hiding in the bushes. A brief glance is enough to convince him that it's dangerous ("It tilts back its head and roars"). His older sister thinks it's a mutant: the fallout from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, Rex's new friends believe it's a panther that escaped from a zoo a few years ago. Throughout the summer, the kids work on a plan to capture the beast. The author subtly draws a parallel between the intangible Cold War fear and fear of the elusive creature. Despite the weighty themes, Wynne-Jones writes with a light, often humorous touch and maintains a perspective true to an 11-year-old's perspective. As Rex muses on the idea of the world ending, he understands that "one world seems to come crashing to a halt and you invent another." This winning hero paints a universe both hopeful and realistic, one that readers may well want to visit. Ages 8-12. (Mar.)

Horn Book Starred Review:

Tim Wynne-Jones  Rex Zero and the End of the World

186 pp. Kroupa/Farrar 3/07 ISBN 978-0-374-33467-3 $16.00

(Intermediate, Middle School)

What to do when the end of the world has a date on it? The homeless man's sign says it will come on October 23, and it doesn't seem all that far-fetched. The TV is full of news about Krushchev and Castro, the neighbors are building a bomb shelter, and just what was that strange beast Rex caught a glimpse of in the park? Canadian novelist Wynne-Jones presents young American readers with a time and place unsettlingly foreign despite its relative proximity:  Ottawa in 1962, at the height of the Cold War. Rex and his family have just moved from  Vancouver, and his top priority is making friends and fitting in, so when he finds a neighborhood gang happily occupied with tracking down an escaped zoo panther, he joins them wholeheartedly.

The present-tense narrative is brilliant in its near stream-of-consciousness depiction of the world as Rex sees it, with the vague but looming grown-up menaces distilling themselves into the threat of the panther, a concrete danger that Rex feels he and his friends can -- indeed must, in the face of adult powerlessness -- contain. The meticulous plotting sets the enormity of world destruction against the equally cataclysmic concerns of childhood, all magnified through the lens of Rex's vivid imagination. It's a historic narrative that resonates eerily and effectively today. V.S.

The Survival Game is the UK version of The Maestro, which came out this spring. It has made the “long” short list for the Guardian Children’s Book Prize for 2006. This is very exciting, following on the heels of Boy in the Burning House making it to the “short” short list last fall.

You can find out more at this website http://books.guardian.co.uk/childrensfictionprize2006/0,,1779116,00.html

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A Thief in the House of Memory has been doing spectacularly well in the USA. It has just been named to the Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books of 2005 list. This list of thirty-six books only includes eleven novels. "Thief" has also made the Kirkus Review list of best children's books. The full list will be published in the December edition of the magazine.

A Thief in the House of Memory was short-listed for the Canadian Library Association young adult novel of the year.

Thief  has also received starred reviews in both School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly.

 

 

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Last September, Boy in the Burning House, made the short list of the Guardian Prize for best children's book in England for 2005. The short list was comprised of only four titles.

Ned Mouse Breaks Away
Pictures by Dusan Petricic,
A Groundwood Book, Toronto, 2003
ISBN 0 –88899-474-5, 68 pages, $14.95 in Canada,
distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West.

Ned Mouse Breaks Away won the 2005 Rocky Mountain Book Award Gold Medal. I traveled to Alberta this past spring to pick up the prize at the “Weaving Words” Conference  in Lethbridge. It was a wonderful trip. Thanks to all the people who organized the conference and the road trip and especially to the kids in Lethbridge, Calgary, Stettler, and Edmonton I had the chance to meet, while out there.

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The Boy in the Burning House has been named an American Library Association (ALA) popular paperback for young adults in the mystery and suspense category.

And from overseas...

The Boy in the Burning House (also known as Il Ragazzo in fiamme ) has won the literary prize "Insula Romana" as the best young adult book of the year in the Umbria region.