After the dedication, but before the narrative begins, the first page that greets readers is a black and white illustration of a hand-drawn map. Although professional, it is cartoonish in style and an appropriate means of drawing in the targeted readership of the novel: those between age 8 and 12. The map features significant landmarks in the story--though not to any precise scale--such as Spectrum Hall, Old Burn Farm, the Quarantine Zone, and the Forest of the Dead. And therein lies the problem with the content of the book relative to its intended target audience.
The issue is not so much the "12" part as the" 8" part. Although the protagonist of the story fits within that age division and is very much a relatable character, the story in which he inhabits is far more appropriately characterized by the names Quarantine Zone and Forest of the Dead than the benign-sounding Spectrum Hall and Old Burn Farm. This is a tough book for readers of any age. By the fifth paragraph in, the young narrator is describing the first adult character mentioned as a warden, complete with italics. Spectrum Hall, it turns out, features only a name that is benign or, at least, morally ambiguous. The Quarantine Zone is exactly what one would expect. As for the Forest of the Dead, the first meaningful description is that no living animal will ever walk through it.
What we are talking about with The Last Wild is—make no mistake—a full featured work of dystopian literature. A mass extinction has killed off most animal life and those that survived nature's genocide find themselves government agents charged with completing the job. Government agents, sure, but government agents most assuredly working in tandem with an evil conglomerate seeking to monopolize a global need for food in the wake of most plant and animal life no longer existing.
The Last Wild is great storytelling that combines a personal story about a bullied kid with a warning about wildlife depletion while pursuing themes about the horror of unfettered capitalism being the tail wagging the dog of governance. It is beautifully written and contains individual moments of profound emotional engagement with the reader. And, yes, it is written in language on a level consistent with middle school.
Which, as it turns out, is exactly the level at which the average American adult reads. According to a 2017 report by The Literacy Project, about half of the U.S. adult population would face serious literacy difficulties understanding the writing in this book. But there is a huge difference between intellectually understanding a work of literature and emotionally understanding it. And the problem with this genuinely wonderful book is that it is hard to imagine many adult readers getting through some passages without difficulty on the emotional side of things. That an eight-year-old might not understand it, then, is not the problem. The bigger problem is that an eight-year-old likely would understand it enough to recognize that the fiction might seriously one day become their reality.
