Someone is trying to break the door down! Carlos is alone in a run-down rented flat when he hears the first splintering blow on the front door. His mum is away at work deep in the Amazon rainforest. As a Captain in the Special Forces group of IBAMA, she is fighting constant arson and land grabbing of the Amazon for illegal farmland, mining and tree felling.

More than ever before, Carlos wishes his mum had a normal job. He rushes to find a hiding place. It doesn’t hide him long.

Carlos wakes, tied up in the back of a jeep speeding through the rainforest on a bumpy track. There is smoke in the air and before the driver can react, cattle are running straight at the jeep. Walls of flame are close behind and the driver flees the wrecked vehicle. Carlos has nowhere to run.

This short novel (115 pages) for reluctant readers is adrenaline pumping from the very first sentence, and doesn’t let up, just like the fires that sweep through the real life Amazon of today. The fact that his mum is a Captain in the IBAMA  (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) is the very reason Carlos is kidnapped.

This isn’t just a tale of fire however, as another thread involving the indigenous tribes of the Amazon is cleverly threaded through the story by a boy Carlos’ age, living alone in the jungle and coming to his aid.

Action packed and thrilling as much as eye-opening and informative, World Burn Down highlights the growing and serious battle environmentalists around the world are dealing with daily.

A great read which a class study on Climate Change and the Environment in general, could springboard from.

Author – Steve Cole

Illustrator – Oriol Vidal

Dyslexic Read – Reading Age 8 – Interest Age 8-12

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(2020, Barrington Stoke UK, Amazon, Soldiers, Environment, Kidnap, Fire, Land Grabbers, Climate Change, Action, Mining, Dyslexic, Reluctant Reader)