Ken Catran: The Tribe: Mall Rats

By MARGIE THOMSON

A mystery virus has killed all the adults in the world, and now the children must survive as best they can.

Gangs, vicious and animalistic, cordon off territories and stockpile food, water and weapons. Survival is the only value: it comes at any price, and is not available to the weak. But Tai San, who is part of a tribe called the Mall Rats, believes that a way out of this darkness - "the first steps on a journey from yesterday to tomorrow" - lies in the telling of stories to begin to create a new history and identity. One by one, she encourages the other members of her tribe to tell their personal stories - a sort of narrative therapy - and wonderfully imaginative, exciting and sometimes genuinely shocking they are. The Tribe: Mall Rats follows The Tribe: Power and Chaos and complements the popular The Tribe television series.

Catran is man of the moment in local children's fiction (he won Book of the year in this year's New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards) and here he proves yet again that he has an unerring finger on the pulse of a good story.

Random House

$14.95