Torch

It's partly a game played with our expectations: the setting, for instance, reads like the classical past but is a future in which the achievements of the intervening centuries have almost been erased. We come to realise that the children of the story have found the Olympic torch and are responding to the historical quest to carry it to its home. Places and people reveal historical connections, fragments of the past. Where the torch should go is only one question among many - what happened to the science of 'Ago', what quality revives the torch's flame? It's a fascinating book despite an awkward ending and ought to be available to 2nd, 3rd and possible 4th years.