The Tornado Chasers

Owen’s parents are very safety conscious, even for the village of Barrow. That is why he wears a safety helmet all the time, and his bed is enclosed in chicken wire and sandbags. More often than not, when he is at home, he is confined to his shuttered bedroom. Barrow is ringed with stormtraps which keep the constant tornados at bay and its children may never leave the village for fear of rampant bears. Ross Montgomery’s first book was shortlisted for the Branford Boase and the Costa Book Award and he follows it up with this humorous take on the restrictions placed on children in the name of safety, in which Owen and his friends decide to emulate Owen’s grandparents and rather than cowering indoors, go out and actively look for danger, becoming Tornado Chasers. The mix of thrills and laughs is well done, with the mood becoming progressively more serious. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Louis Sachar’s Holes; and not only in the sun-glassed figure of the Warden of the County Detention Centre, where recalcitrant children are taken. Like Holes, The Tornado Chasers shows us an unreal world which takes its cues from our own and asks troubling questions, this time about what right adults have to restrict their children’s lives for their safety and where might the line be drawn between freedom and risk. It’s a consistently funny and exciting story whose ending offers both a twist and a surprise.