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S. D. Smith's Ember Rising is the third book in an epic rabbit war story for 8 year olds, and it keeps its two heroes miles apart.
Heather is on her own in Akolan. It's a city of enslaved rabbits at the bottom of a huge stone pit, where ash from a burning rubbish heap drifts down like snow.
She arrives (quite literally) through the roof of a tent in the Lepers' District. Then she spends the rest of the night running and hiding, with no idea who to trust.
By morning she's been told that the rabbit in charge of the city shares her family name. Heather's heard a lot of lies by now. So who is he?
Picket, meanwhile, is far away with his master, gruff old Captain Helmer, on a mission even more dangerous than Heather's. Their journey is the warm bit of the book.
Helmer's idea of comfort is to say things will get worse. Picket teases him straight back. Then Helmer mentions a twin sister he hasn't seen for years, and the jokes stop for a while.
That's what these books do so well. Proper sword fights and solemn oaths, then two friends bickering about maps. Your reader gets brave speeches and real tears, sometimes on the same page.
This is a war story and it doesn't look away. Heather is pushed off a flying bird, has a crossbow bolt fly past her ear, and is hit and kicked by the rabbit who runs the city.
Picket nearly kills a soldier in a fight between rabbits and only just stops himself. Slavery is everywhere in Akolan. And by the end of chapter seven Helmer has been hit by an arrow.
It isn't gory in these opening chapters. But a child who gets very upset when characters they love are hurt might want you close by for this one. If they're already gripped by Heather and Picket's story, they'll be desperate to know what happens next.
It really does need reading in order, because so much of it leans on what happened in the first two books. If your reader hasn't started yet, go back to the game in the meadow and the thunderstorm where it all began, in The Green Ember.
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