Ann lives alone. She tries not to think of the last time she saw her family. Now, she just has to get on with the chores of living, because there is no one else to help.

The war was short. The clouds shaped like giant mushrooms were a long way off from the valley she has lived in all her life. It’s a small community with towns not far away, but unfortunately they didn’t escape the radiation that wiped out everyone and everything it could reach.

Miraculously, it didn’t reach into Ann’s valley, leaving an oasis of green, a stream of fresh, clean and safe drinking water, and the fields her family have farmed for generations. She doesn’t mind all the chores, the hunting and fishing and working the land. It keeps her busy, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to besides the cows and chickens.

The first time she sees the smoke, she wonders how it happened. When it moves closer, but no bigger, she knows she is alone no longer. But it’s been over a year since she’s seen anyone, and she knows she should be careful. At 16 she’s not a child any more, and knows better than to rush into a possibly dangerous stranger’s reach.

She leaves her family home behind, setting up in a nearby cave where she watches and waits. She is surprised by the appearance of the stranger in a plastic suit. He’s wearing a strange mask as he pulls a covered trolley behind him. Ann watches him swim in one of the nearby streams too. Hasn’t he noticed there are no fish or plants along the edge of the water?

Sure enough, he is soon sick and her fear of him is finally taken over by her fear of being alone again. She has had to leave all her dreams of being an English teacher, falling in love and having her own family behind since the war. Surely it isn’t so awful to at least have someone to talk to?

Ann nurses this stranger back to health. She knows his name now – Mr Loomis, but not much else. Until he becomes delirious, babbling his secrets. Ann doesn’t tell him what he revealed after he fights off the radiation and begins to find his strength again.

Soon she is wishing that he never found her valley at all…

I have heard of this title through my life, but was never aware of what it was about. When I finally had an opportunity to find out, I wasn’t disappointed. I enjoy survival stories, and this one has an eerie twist. The plot is a result of a nuclear war and all too believable 50 years after it was first published, making it even more chilling.

On further research, I discovered the movie was made in 2015 – right here in New Zealand on the Banks Peninsula in the South Island. I can already see from the movie trailers that it is different to the book, with two men not one, but will be watching it as soon as I get a chance.

It is available on TVNZ on demand –  https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/z-for-zachariah  – I’ll add more to this review after I’ve watched it. I never got to see Margot Robbie in her famous Barbie but am looking forward to seeing her in Z for Zachariah.

Author – Robert C O’Brien

Age – 12+

(2017, Penguin, Classic, Dystopian, Nuclear War, Disaster, Survival, Radiation Sickness, Insanity, Cunning, Kindness, Nurse back to Health, Alone, Animals, Cows, Chickens, Farming, Vegetable Gardening, Escape, Betrayal)