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SpineOut : June July 2016
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New Books turner Page SpineOut chats with MARK SMITH, who’s new postapocalyptic YA novel, The Road to Winter, is being compared to John Marsden’s Tomorrow When the War Began. its peak two winters ago, and many E others, like Finn’s father, were murdered in the ensuing violence as the world panicked and plundered. He and his dog Rowdy are living in a shack by the beach somewhere in Australia. Rabbit traps and seafood scavenged from rock pools keep the ribs from showing through his skin. It wasn’t hard for Melbourne author Mark Smith to imagine how a boy would survive alone in the Australian wilderness; he’s been an outdoor education teacher for 14 years. ‘Fifteen-year-old boys come to us for a month,’ he explains. ‘It’s a transition-to-manhood kind of program with outdoor education. The first thing that we do is take all the devices away from them when they arrive. So that’s their life-support system gone,’ he says with a laugh. ‘I’m a great believer in boys being resourceful. veryone that Finn knew is dead. Most succumbed to a viral pandemic that reached Finn’s loneliness is paramount to his safety; a regiment of raiders known as Wilders scour abandoned towns for survivors to rob, enslave or kill. When a girl, Rose, stumbles out of the bush on the run from a pack of Wilders, the promise of companionship drives Finn to help her escape. Rose is a Siley – an asylum seeker from Afghanistan brought to the mainland and subjugated as a slave before the pandemic hit. Even after the virus ends civilisation, the Sileys are still regarded as second-class citizens. Rose has a sister, Kas, who is missing in the bush. Finn leaves the safety of the shack to track Kas down before the Wilders find her, setting off a thrilling chase and chilling encounters with the ruthless men. ‘There are so many typical teenage-boy things about Finn. I would really love it to be something that boys could pick up rather than picking up their games or going to their tablet, and actually read. Hence the relatively short length and page-turning nature of the book.’
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