First Light is a young adult novel set in Greenland, featuring a hidden world beneath a glacier, sled dogs (Chikchu), secrets, and a lovely mixture of magic and science.

Peter, the son of a scientist, lives in New York. He and his mother travel to Greenland with Peter’s father who is studying climate change. Peter is troubled by strange headaches, which his mother also suffers from, and the sense that his family is keeping something from him.

Thea lives in an underground colony named Gracehope and has never seen the sun. She wants to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother, and longs for her people to return to the surface.

First Light alternates between Peter and Thea’s viewpoints and, of course, their stories are connected. The story feels a bit slow to get going; it is not until page 64 that Peter arrives in Greenland and page 169 before the two characters come together. Once they do, the book really comes to life.

Without warning, Gru started keening again, even louder now. Thea looked at her, followed the Chikchu’s gaze to the boy and the huge wedge he leaned against. She wasn’t sounding an alarm, she realized, Gru was screaming for this boy. For him to come to them (170).

Gracehope was founded hundreds of years ago by a group called the Settlers who possessed unusual abilities, such as extremely good vision and hearing ('eye adepts' and 'ear adepts'). These powers were seen as sorcery, prompting their leader, Grace, to bring them under the ice in Greenland so they could live in peace.

Thea finds a map in her room of Gracehope, which shows a tunnel leading onto the surface. Thea and her cousin Mattias find the tunnel and of course, soon get into trouble. Meanwhile, Peter finds an intricately woven red ring embedded in the ice and experiences visions that lead him to a crevice in the glacier.

Global warming is melting Gracehope and, together, Peter and Thea must attempt to persuade the people to leave.

Rebecca Stead won the Newbery Medal for her second novel, When You Reach Me. First Light is her first novel, originally published in 2007 but published in Australia for the first time in May this year by Text.

The climate change theme is timely and subtly handled, in no way overpowering the story’s sense of adventure or other themes: family, secrets and belonging. From the cover and blurb, I was hoping for something in the vein of Wolfbrother, the wonderful series by Michelle Paver, set in the stone-age and featuring a wolf cub. First Light, unfortunately, is not in the same league. While Thea’s people raise sled dogs from puppies, and much rests on the birth of a pup with four white paws, this aspect of the novel is not explored to the same intensity and depth, and in general, lacks the page-turning quality. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable and atmospheric story, and should appeal to good readers between ten and sixteen.

First Light
by Rebecca Stead
Text Publishing
ISBN 9781921758256

About Rebecca Stead

Rebecca Stead grew up in New York City where she now enjoys life as a full-time writer with her husband and two sons. She won the Newbery Medal, the world’s oldest children’s book award, for her second novel, When You Reach Me. First Light is her first book. For more information you can visit: http://www.firstlightbook.com/

About the Reviewer

Inga Simpson is a Queensland author, the co-director of Olvar Wood Writers Retreat, and one of the editors of Perilous Adventures.

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