SuitabookThe Last Wild
Piers Torday
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside the child, pausing after intense encounters to name what feels frightening and what characters choose. Afterwards, explore the treatment of animals and discuss the unresolved questions signalled by the ending.
- Themes
- Respect for animals and the natural world: Most animals have died from disease, and surviving animals face organised extermination. The children and animals undertake a mission connected with survival and a possible cure. The narrative presents respect for living beings and courage sympathetically, while also showing that supposed protectors may pursue self-serving aims.
- Courage under imposed responsibility: Kester escapes confinement and is entrusted with an important mission; Polly and several animals help him while facing fear and danger. Bravery, resourcefulness, loyalty and perseverance are repeatedly associated with the children and sympathetic animals, without removing their fear or confusion.
- Loss, silence and family separation: Kester loses his mother, becomes unable to speak and is sent to Spectrum Hall; he later seeks his scientist father while other families are disrupted. The fuller treatment of these themes is unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Pay particular attention if animal suffering, bereavement or frightening danger could be difficult. The story includes deaths, kidnapping, weapons, threatening mobs, animal extermination, mortal combat and a child pressured to kill; graphic detail is described as limited.