A Matter of Days by Amber Kizer (review)

Over the past eight weeks, a manmade global pandemic has decimated the world's human population. Now, with their parents dead, sixteen-year-old Nadia and her younger brother, Rabbit, must set off on a cross-country journey in search of a family compound hidden deep in the West Virginia mountains, where they hope some of their family has survived the plague. Scavenging for supplies and avoiding cities full of rotting corpses, they travel down the highway, relying only on each other and the survival skills their father has taught them. Along the way, they find a little relief from the gloom, adopting an enormous injured dog and making friends with a strange young man who has reclaimed a small town as his own private kingdom. Not everyone they meet is helpful, though, and the roads are teeming with hungry animals and violent survivors who would kill for the siblings' provisions. As Nadia struggles to protect her brother, she must decide if the trip is worth the risk or if they should find a new place of their own to call home. Less grim than many post-apocalyptic narratives currently on offer, this novel is a good fit for readers who want the suspense of a dystopian survival story without the suffering that heroines of the genre usually endure. The young people encounter their share of danger but manage to survive trials and tribulation with little effort and find a happy resolution at tale's end. Character-wise, the novel has broad appeal: Nadia serves as a quirky, snarky narrator, while Rabbit reigns as adorable brother supreme, impetuous and innocent yet wise beyond his youth. The novel works then as a milder, more accessible entry point to the genre for readers who are more likely to prefer The Swiss Family Robinson to Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It (BCCB 12/06).