Joule, Regina and Oliver live in the city of Redwood. Like every other city, they are in preparation for zombie season. This is a time of year when the local zombies are particularly active, and Redwood residents do everything to avoid them.

These zombies aren’t like what the world is used to on TV and in movies. These zombies don’t just eat brains, they eat everything. That includes trees, cars, houses, people, and whatever is in their way.

Oliver is getting frustrated at zombie avoidance training at school. He knows Redwood like his own face and has mapped every trail, short-cut, and path around his town in a notebook he carries everywhere. He tries to get his Coach to change their training and make it more useful in the Dusk – when the sky turns a shade of red as zombies rise in the summer and kick up clouds of dust, but Coach just won’t listen.

Joule lost her father to a flashpoint – when zombies rise unexpectedly and eat everything in sight. These can fade again quickly if the zombies have nothing to eat for their fuel or can become a wave which is extremely dangerous. Joule refuses to believe the father she adored is gone, and has run away from home to look for him before her mother puts them on a plane away from Redwood forever.

Regina is the daughter of a local scientist. She finds it hard to make and keep friends because she is more interested in science and the zombie problem than social media or who is wearing what. In fact, Regina worked with her mum on an amazing new project to make the zombies useful instead of just pure destruction. She is excited at the launch – until everything goes horribly wrong….

All three children and their families are caught up in not one but multiple waves of zombies swarming towards their city. Nothing the Zombie Fighting Brigade does can keep them back, with all the usual tools not working like they should.

Some zombies even look like they are actually thinking before attacking. There even seems to be a leader! What is going on?

The cover drew me in, and then the title. I always like a good zombie story. Zombie Season is different however to any other story I’ve read. These zombies eat everything in their path to fuel themselves leaving pure devastation behind them. Reading about living with this constant threat was intriguing, and the key characters are all young and trying to do something about it.

When zombie behaviour begins to change from the norm, tension rises within the story. It becomes even more tense when everything is tipped on its head. The tools humans use around the world to eradicate zombies, might just be making things worse, and some researchers might just be going too far in their search for answers.

These story threads draw the reader into the next book coming in this series.

Author – Justin Weinberger

Age – 10+

(2023, Scholastic US, Zombies, Fear, Horror, Friendships, Courage, Solutions, Problem, Science, Family, Missing Dad, Secrets, Tension, Map maker, Action, Suspense, Series, Fantasy, Friendship)