WILDFIRE!

Ten-year-old Ben learns a lesson about loyalty, obedience, and jealousy. Ben’s parents died in a car crash six years earlier and his great-grandmother insisted that Ben move in with her and Ben’s grandparents, stating firmly, “He’s our boy.” These three words have kept Ben on the straight and narrow, helping whenever he can and being a good, good boy. Ben likes his life, but begins to doubt himself when Elliot, the city boy, arrives and seems to have something negative to say about every detail of rural life. Sophisticated and worldly wise, Elliot has some of the material things that Ben lacks, even gets a dog put up for adoption. When wildfires move through the state one July, fireworks are forbidden. But Elliot goads Ben into shooting off just a couple, with a disastrous result. Though the depiction of the grandparents is warm and loving, the story is predictable and the rest of the secondary characters are wooden. This tale fails to ignite any sparks for the reader. (Fiction. 7-10)