Floodland (Cascades) - Hardcover

Sedgwick, Marcus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007134401 ISBN 13: 9780007134403

Publisher: Collins Educational, 2002

Synopsis

Imagine that England is covered with water and Norwich is an island. Zoe survives there as best she can. Alone and desperate among gangs, she manages to dig a derelict boat out of the mud and gets away to Eels island. But it too is full of danger.

About this title

Review

Ten-year-old Zoe is desperate. In a not-too-distant future where the polar ice caps have melted and most of the planet's land is underwater, she is alone with one precious possession--a rowboat. With it, she can navigate the few bits of land still visible in search of her parents, from whom she was accidentally separated. That is, until she is captured on one desolate shore by a band of impoverished teenagers who call themselves the Eels. On the Eels' island, Zoe's boat is stolen and she is taken prisoner by the gang's savage young leader, Dobby. The only reasonable person left on the island is its sole adult, ironically nicknamed Mad William. Though Dobby's gang dismisses him as crazy, Zoe quickly understands that William's strange mutterings hold the secret to finding both dry land and her parents. Now all she has to do is find her boat, gather provisions, and manage to escape Dobby's grasp before the ever rising water closes over the Eels' island forever.

First-time author Marcus Sedgwick's Floodland is an inspired mix of Lord of the Flies, Survivor, and Tomb Raider, guaranteed to captivate the most reluctant teen readers with deceptively simple prose and a richly imagined plot that could very well come to pass. Sedgwick adds his own stunning, original woodcut illustrations that help communicate the dreary yet barren beauty of the watery setting. All in all, this is a brilliant debut, reminiscent of Garth Nix's Shade's Children and Adam Rapp's The Copper Elephant. (Ages 10 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From the Inside Flap

What if the sea began to rise . . . and rise . . . until the land began to disappear? A brilliant futuristic fantasy by an acclaimed new writer.

Global warming has caused the sea to rise until cities are turning into islands and civilization is crumbling. Ten-year-old Zoe discovers a small rowboat and keeps it a secret until she sets out alone on the great sea to find her parents. She lands on tiny Eels Island, where she must survive in a nightmarish world run by wild children, and stand up to its boy-leader, Dooby. Zoe and a boy called Munchkin escape from Eels Island and cross the sea to the mainland, where they find not only Zoe?s parents but a new family and a new world.

Edition details

• Publisher: Collins Educational
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0007134401
• ISBN 13: 9780007134403
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128