The Burning Season
by Caroline Starr Rose
Intermediate, Middle School    Paulsen/Penguin    256 pp.
5/25    9780593617939    $17.99
Paper ed.  9780593617953    $9.99
e-book ed.  9780593617946    $10.99

It’s time for twelve-year-old Opal, who has spent her entire life living atop the fire tower in the Gila National Forest, to learn the family trade. While Opal is proud to belong to a family of lookouts and loves her home in the sky, she has a secret that’s nerve-wracking in her circumstances: she is afraid of fire. Her father, a smokejumper, died when she was just a baby, and memories of a life-threatening fire two years ago have her questioning her presumed future career. What’s more, she dreams of attending middle school in town with her friends rather than being homeschooled out in the forest. Then disaster strikes: poor trail conditions extend her mom’s trip into town for supplies, and her gran is injured just as a wildfire is approaching. Opal decides to face her fears head on and jumps into action to contain the blaze. This thrilling novel in verse packs all of the adventure and excitement of a survival story into concise, poetic stanzas (“red orange yellow / layers of light / terrifying / loss and change / this place / my heart / my wilderness / an end / a start / this heat / these flames”). A thorough author’s note includes information about the benefits of controlled burns, the Gila Wilderness, and the dangers of droughts and our warming planet.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.