Paradise on Fire

Adaugo, a girl known as Addy, is one of a group of six teenagers of colour from cities in the USA who have been selected to go on a summer wilderness programme. The students learn new skills: hiking, camping and cooking outdoors, climbing and surviving. Some are reluctant (DeShon rarely takes his headphones off), and distrust their white team leaders, college students with vacation work, but the owner, Leo, who ‘looks as if he dresses up as Santa at Christmas’, charms them, and he and his dog, Ryder, get on especially well with Addy. Over the summer, the teenagers build up their stamina and increase their knowledge, especially the responsibilities of putting out a campfire properly and looking after each other. Eventually we realise why Addy loves mapping – she likes to know that she has an escape route. Her parents had died in a fire, and she has been brought up by her grandmother Bibi, who had to come over from Ghana to care for her. Bibi’s wisdom and Leo’s knowledge and teaching help Addy to become more confident in the natural environment, and when wildfire strikes while the whole group is on their final three-day camping trip, she is able to lead some of her new friends to safety.

The setting is American, and some words will be unfamiliar to British readers (your reviewer looked up ‘s’mores’ which look like a delicious snack of biscuits with melted marshmallows on top) but nothing is too difficult to understand.

Jewell Parker Rhodes’ previous book, Ghost Boys, was well received. It told of a studious boy shot dead by police when playing with a toy gun, and his discovery of other ghost boys with similar backgrounds: disadvantaged children are given a voice in both these books. She writes well, and this is a real page-tuner as wildfire threatens the group. This is definitely recommended.