The Wild Way Home

When Charlie's longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie's world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It's become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins. For Charlie has unwittingly fled into the Stone Age, with no way to help the boy or return to the present day. Or is there … ?

What follows is a wild, big-hearted adventure as Charlie and the Stone Age boy set out together to find what they have lost – their courage, their hope, their family and their way home. {goodreads summary}

The Wild Way Home will tug at your heartstrings! Here are three reasons I would recommend this emotional, heartfelt story:

1. Charlie goes through a lot in this novel. His much longed for baby brother is seriously ill, and when he runs away - trying to make sense of the devastation, fear and guilt building inside him - he becomes stuck 6000 years in the past in a forest both alien and familiar. His emotional responses drive the plot and make this an extremely moving story. 

2. Landscape and nature are really important in The Wild Way Home. Charlie loves living on the outskirts of Mandel Forest and knows its every track and cave. When he travels to the past, the forest comes alive in a new way, reflecting the wild, dangerous landscape of England long ago, with lynxes, bears and wolves round every bend. It was an exciting location which MG readers will love. The Stone Age sections will also be very popular with readers, and they felt very realistic and believable due to the descriptions and scene setting. 

3. Home and family are at the very heart of this story. It will make you hug your loved ones a little bit tighter and makes a particularly heart warming story while stuck social distancing and unable to connect with family and nature as much as we might like. 

The Wild Way Home is the perfect book-based antidote to weeks spent inside.