The Last Wild Place - Hardcover

Jordan, Rosa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1561454583 ISBN 13: 9781561454587

Publisher: Peachtree, 2008

Synopsis

A complex story about small town life and displacement―both of humans and of wildlife
Chip Martin’s life is going well, but now everything is beginning to fragment. His brother Justin’s away at college and his sister Kate is busy with her high school activities. His single mom’s lifelong friendship with Booker Wilson has suddenly taken a romantic turn, and now his best friend Luther won’t speak to him. Even worse, Chip has to face the possibility of being uprooted.
Chip’s feelings of dislocation are compounded when he meets kids at his community center who are refugees, left homeless in the aftermath of a recent hurricane along the Florida Panhandle. But then Chip discovers something unbelievable―a family of Florida panthers that have been driven out of their home in the Everglades. Chip is alarmed when he hears that the last few acres of the woods are to be cleared to make way for a meat-packing plant. When he tries to protect the panthers, he learns that he has more friends than he thought.
Author Rosa Jordan’s memorable, well-drawn characters are woven together into a web of complex relationships marked by the challenges of displacement. The result is an intriguing and relatable tale of unexpected friendship that will satisfy readers.

About this title

About the Author:

Rosa Jordan holds degrees from Santa Monica Junior College, UCLA, and the University of Guanajuato, Mexico. She is the author of Cycling Cuba and Dangerous Places: Travels on the Edge and the director of the social justice program for Earthways Foundation. She lives in Canada.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5–8—Jordan returns with another eco-friendly novel featuring the Martin family. Now that Justin is away at college, Chip, 12, is the man of the house. His mother has become romantically involved with his friend Luther's uncle. The town's community center is providing a temporary home to families who were displaced by a recent Gulf Coast hurricane, and as Luther befriends some of those kids, he seems to be distancing himself from Chip. Seeking solace at a deserted property that he and Luther discovered several years earlier, Chip makes an amazing discovery: two Florida panther cubs have somehow traveled from the Everglades to the abandoned site and have established a home there. Chip has visions of befriending the animals, but the future of all the wildlife in the marshy sanctuary is unexpectedly put into danger when a construction crew arrives to raze the barn and turn the property into a meat-packing plant. When the adults fail to come up with an immediate solution to protect the animals, Chip and his classmates take matters into their own hands. Reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen's Hoot (Knopf, 2002), Wild Place is an empowering story of friendship and kids who step up to make a difference. Sprinkled liberally with environmental messages, it manages to avoid crossing the line into didacticism. The characters are fully realized and the plot moves along at a good clip. While readers of Jordan's first two stories will enjoy meeting up with familiar characters, the novel easily stands alone.—Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
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About this edition

• Publisher: Peachtree
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1561454583
• ISBN 13: 9781561454587
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256