North and the Only One
Vashti Hardy
Scholastic

Having woken fourteen days ago from a seemingly endless sleep, twelve year old Rose, has no memory of any life before, not even her name. What caused the scar on her head? Why does she feel lost in her own home? These are just two of the many questions she has. The only thing that feels familiar is North, her puppy. Yes, the woman she lives with, says she is Rose’s mother but despite the pleasant life the three have together, as the days pass something feels wrong. Fragments of her past come to Rose in dreams. She’s walking among the trees – there’s a forest: home perhaps? Nothing like the place she now finds herself in. Then one night Rose makes an unsettling discovery about this ‘Mother’ of hers and it drives her to leave the house, with North beside her. She runs towards the only thing that feels real to her – the forest: surely there she can find other humans.

What Rose finds is that she’s on a frightening journey through a city with a political set up based on control and fear wherein her very existence is both a threat and threatened; and where she doesn’t know whom to trust: the tour guide mouse or the charming fox and rabbit droids working for a travelling theatre. A journey that makes readers feel they’re part of the girl’s search for the truth.
Probably THE most important thing of all Rose discovers is the power of stories; stories that help us make sense of things, that connect us both to the past and one another. Stories make us human and reveal our truth.

With its STEM and environmental references, this is a compelling story for older readers that is highly thought-provoking, exploring as it does, what being human means and what makes a family.