"My fear rekindles, burns again.
My palms are slick with sweat.
That terrible day four years ago,
before the fire crew came,
before the helicopter saved us,
the skies alight with red-orange haze
as flames leaped tree to tree -
crown fire in the canopy."
It is Opal's 12th birthday, and time for her to start training with Gran to uphold a fourth generation career as a wilderness lookout. Opal, her mom and her grandma live in a lookout tower in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Their daily task is to keep watch, check in and spot fires. Opal loves the life and the work they do; she also yearns to attend school and live with with her best friends in Cielito, a town nearby.
Her father's death in a fire, the fire that came far too close to their home four years before, and the intense fire that burned much of her beloved forest have left Opal with an overpowering fear of the flames that can so quickly consume entire forests and leave destruction in their path. Her life and learning are brought to the fore when her mother is stranded in town by a washed-out trail, and her grandmother is lost in the forest while looking for her granddaughter.
Seeing the beginning of a fire, and having no one else to count on, Opal embarks on a quest to save and protect her grandmother, while also doing her best to stem the fire that no one else can stop. What courage that takes for a young, uncertain girl. While informing readers about climate change and managing wildfire threats, Ms. Rose also pens gripping, emotional poetry to tell Opal's story. The pace is intense, the story compelling, and Opal's work to take all she has learned and use it in a terrifying situation makes this a book that many middle graders will find this survival story hard to put down.
An author's note describes the research, the history of fire management, and the need to listen to the land to effect the changes needed to make things better.
"Gran says
before hard times and drought,
before they were scattered to reservations,
Native people burned dead growth,
tended forest gardens,
used ash to fertilize their crops
and fire to corner game.
They knew to listen to the land,
understood its burning seasons,
respected the life-giving force,
nature's gift of fire."
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