Maisie vs Antarctica

Jack Jackman's Maisie vs Antarctica is a funny survival story for 9 year olds about a girl stranded on the ice with her very sensible dad.

What happens

It starts with a bang (literally). A tiny plane, a smashed windscreen, a pilot slumped over the controls and Dad calmly announcing "a little problem". Then Maisie stops and tells you that's a terrible way to start a story, and goes back to the beginning.

She's eleven and she's writing a novel about a ghost pirate called Nyteshade. Dad writes books too. They have exciting titles like How to Build a Zip Wire, and Maisie swears nobody has ever got to the end of one. He's also never done a single thing he writes about.

So when their neighbour's house floods just before Christmas, Maisie begs her way onto his research trip. It's her first time on a plane. It's her first time anywhere, really.

Then the plane comes down on the sea ice. And Dad admits that nobody knows where they are.

Maisie's voice is what makes it. She's dramatic and cheeky, and she'll happily write her own gravestone halfway through a crash. She also notices the odd things Dad keeps getting away with. How did he build an igloo so fast? Why is there a shovel in his backpack? And why can't she remember getting out of the plane?

You'll probably twig before she does that Dad isn't quite what he seems (that's half the fun). There's a softer side too. Maisie's mum died a few days after she was born, and Dad won't talk about her.

The crash comes right at the start and the pilot is hurt in it, although he's awake and joking by the next morning. The loss of Maisie's mum is backstory, not something that happens in the story. For most readers the danger is thrilling rather than scary, because Maisie is having the time of her life.

If you've got a reader who loves a narrator with LOTS to say and an adventure a very long way from home, this is a great pick.

What to read next

If they'd like another girl heading somewhere icy with her dad, try The Last Bear. April lost her mum when she was little too, and her dad is a weather scientist who takes her to a remote Arctic island, where she ends up face to face with a polar bear.