When the Wild Calls

Nicola Penfold's When the Wild Calls is a gripping near-future adventure for 10 year olds about a girl who has found safety, and the people she had to leave behind.

What happens

Juniper and her little brother Bear now live in Ennerdale, a hidden community among the mountains and lakes where people keep chickens, grow food and swim in the lake all winter. They're with their dad, his partner Willow and their brand-new baby sister, Fern.

It's lovely. There are barn owls and red squirrels, and Bear has a lynx he swears he's spotted. But not everyone wants them there. A cross neighbour blames Bear when a fox gets into her chickens, and some of the elders don't trust outsiders at all.

Then three strangers arrive with news. There's disease inside the walled city Juniper escaped from. Her grandmother is still in there. So is her best friend Etienne. And Dad has had vials of vaccine the whole time (without telling her).

Some chapters jump back inside the city with Etienne. He's secretly signed up for a disease trial, rebels are putting up posters at night and the hospitals are full. Those chapters feel tight and dangerous next to the fresh air of Ennerdale. You really feel the pull between the two worlds.

This carries on Juniper and Bear's story from Where the World Turns Wild. So much of it rests on that book that you'll want to start there if your reader hasn't read it yet.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

It deals with illness and loss. Juniper and Bear's mum died years ago, and a young aid worker tells Juniper how her own parents died of the disease. Etienne is deliberately exposed to disease as part of the trial. Nothing is graphic, but a child who worries about illness might find parts of it hard going.

For a reader who loves nature and a brave, thoughtful heroine who stands up to the grown-ups, it's a proper page-turner. Juniper asks the question the adults avoid. What's the point of being safe if you won't help anyone else?

What to read next

If Penfold's worlds have them hooked, Between Sea and Sky is in the library too. It's set in a flooded bay where the kids dare each other past strict rules, with a prison ship out on the horizon.