Six pupils from Year Six met with me during the winter term in 2018 to read ‘The Last Wild’ by Piers Torday.

In this book, Kester is imprisoned in a school for troubled children. He can't speak. His mum has died and his dad has disappeared. The world is bleak with all the animals diseased or dead, and there is no means of making food, so a 'formula', where everything tastes of prawn cocktail crisps, is all there is to eat.

One night Kester finds that he can communicate with the cockroach in his room, and pigeons outside his window want to help him escape.

Alone on the island, Kester discovers that there are still some animals alive. Together they must find a cure for the red-eye disease, and his adventure begins.

This is a fabulous book that had us all completely gripped. Reading just one section of the book at a time for each week's discussion was tough.

It is an action-packed page-turner of a book. We couldn't help but speculate on what was going to happen next, who were the goodies and the baddies, and what was motivating humans and animals in this imagined, apocalyptic world of the near future. And the ending didn't disappoint.

This book had both tension and humour, and great characterisation. There were lots of animated discussions and we are all keen to read the next two books in this trilogy.