The Burning Season

Gr 4-7–A fear of fire is a secret that weighs heavy in the heart of 12-year-old Opal, the fourth generation of women to live in the fire lookout tower on isolated Wolf Peak in the Gila National Forest. Gran has started training her to one day be the fire lookout, but what Opal really wants is to move to town to attend middle school. After a storm lands them at their post without Opal’s mother, Gran suddenly needs more help than Opal can provide; then Opal spots her first fire, sure to become a blaze and headed right for Gran. This fast-paced survival story is written in verse; the style brings readers along with Opal, racing through the forest as she calls on everything she has learned to take control of a situation she never dreamed of mastering. Descriptions of the National Forest feel vivid and realistic; Opal and her family know and love the land and detailed pictures are painted by the verse. They are not Indigenous, and lands are seen through their eyes, with mention of the ways that the Mogollon and Apache peoples dealt with fire.