Imagine reluctantly arriving at your Gran’s for a long weekend in the Scottish Highlands, feeling annoyed about missing a party with friends from school and braced for boredom
Then you discover that this is not going to be any ordinary weekend. Your Gran has made a terrible mistake and now she needs you and a boy from school you cannot stand to put it right.
This is what happens to Esme when her mum drops her off at her Gran’s. She finds out that her Granny found what she thought was an abandoned kitten and brought it home to live with her, only the cute lost little kitten was not that at all … it was a Eurasian Lynx kit!
The lynx is causing chaos at Gran’s home and she knows that she needs to send Cora back to the estate where she was found. An estate where there is a rewilding programme for the Eurasian Lynx and wolves.
Esme is being sent on a dangerous mission to rewild Cora, the lynx, but she is not going alone. She is being sent into the wilderness of the highlands with Callum Docherty, the bad boy from school that she and her friends are always mean to, and Shug, the worst guard dog in the world.
Gran and her friend, Sadie, who is also Callum’s caring, loving, rather awesome foster mum need the children to take Cora back to the estate to reunite her with her mum in the lynx enclosure. Along the way it is hoped that Cora will show signs of being able to hunt for food and will remember some of her wild ways so that they can feel confident that she is ready to survive in the wild.
It is a huge task for the two children and they are incredibly brave to take it on, but really they have no choice as they try to put right the mistake their elders have made and take Cora safely back where she belongs.
What follows is an amazing adventure story laced with mild peril and mystery as the children travel through the bleak Highlands moorland facing adverse weather, unfriendly farmers and estate managers, dead sheep and raging rivers. The nights are hard when they hear the unmistakable howling of wolves!
The Rewilders by Lindsay Littleson has strong characters that you are rooting for from the first time that you meet them. Both children are lonely and misunderstood.
Callum has been passed from foster home to foster home and has lost contact with his little brother who was adopted. He and Sadie have a brilliant relationship and Callum hopes he might have finally found in Sadie a family of his own.
Esme has been misguided by a bad friend at school. She has been a victim of peer pressure and has behaved in ways that she is not proud of. Esme needs to find a better friend but more than that she needs to find herself and the courage to be true to herself once she is found.
Esme and Callum help one another and their relationship is compelling. I would love to know more about what happened to the children after their adventure was over.
This story will open up conversations with young readers around friendship, bullying, peer pressure, judging people without really knowing them and the importance of kindness.
The story will also perhaps lead to children discussing foster care and adoption and different family make ups.
The two children in The Rewilders show strength of character and courage. They are great role models for young readers who are feeling reflective about themselves, their friends and families. Together they learn about lynx, wolves, about life and about each other. It made my heart sing as their friendship bloomed through the story.
The dual narrative of The Rewilders allows readers to see the friendship growing on both sides and helps us understand the experience of the journey from the perspectives of both children. It is incredibly powerful and poignant storytelling.
This book is also, of course, about the wild and the world we live in. It is about ways we can help to restore and protect fragile ecosystems where we live. It is a rewilding story that is focused on the Scottish moors, the highlands and the temperate rainforest that can be found there. I did not know this before reading this book! There is rainforest in Scotland!
I adored the wonderful descriptions of the Scottish highlands and the wildlife. I loved the fast pace of the story, the many mishaps along the way and the addition of a mystery to solve.
The Rewilders highlights that “Scotland was once a country of enormous forests, peat bogs and wetlands, where wolves, bears and lynx roamed freely.”
The story shines a light on the importance of rewilding and the fact that action is needed now to bring our natural world back to life. Cora’s story is a brilliant way to open up a debate with children about the pros and cons of reintroducing large predators to Britain’s countryside. A way to gett hem talking about why people would have different opinions and how all points of view are valid and should be accepted and respected. Such a powerful way to get children thinking about this topic and the wider rewilding movement in Scotland and beyond.
There are some brilliant resources for teachers and educators to accompany The Rewilders, filled with resources for further reading and exploration of topics, discussion notes and activity ideas
I will definitely be reading this wonderful story again with my children and creating a topic around rewilding, restoring and protecting fragile ecosystems and learning more about the predators that used to live in the rural areas of Scotland and the rest of The United Kingdom.
The adventures of Esme, Callum, Shug and Cora have had a huge effect on me. I cried real tears of joy at the end of the story. You will have to read it yourself to see why.
A wonderfully wild story to inspire young readers to become Rewilders themselves.
This book pairs well with Keeper of Secrets by Sarah J Dodd. Another beautiful rewilding story with a heartfelt human tale too x
