Zenith is the incredible story of three teenagers with the will to make their own beginnings in the harshest of worlds. It continues the stunning journey begun in Exodus, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award. For all those adults and children who enjoyed Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy, both titles will be devoured. It is also an environmental wake-up call that should be required reading for all. With terrific storytelling power, Julie Bretagna has written an ambitious and intellectually stimulating novel and pulled it off with great aplomb.
The world is gradually drowning, as the Arctic ice melts, the seas rise, and land disappears forever beneath storm-tossed waves. Sixteen-year-old Mara and her ship of refugees are tracking the North Star, desperate to find a homeland in the melted ice mountains of Greenland. The vast, floating city of Pomperoy is just one of the shocks that are not in their navigation plans. Unwittingly, the refugees bring catastrophe in their wake for Tuck, a gypsy pirate-boy. Back in the drowned ruins at the feet of the towering sky city, Fox is beginning his battle with the cruel, corrupt forces that rule the New World. But separated from Mara, his resolve begins to waver.
Julie Bertagna was born in Ayrshire and brought up near Glasgow. After an English degree at Glasgow University she worked as the editor of a small magazine, a teacher and then as a freelance feature writer for various publications. She was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary - the second highest ever given to a children's writer in Scotland - after the publication of her first novel, The Spark Gap, which was shortlisted for the Angus Award.
