posted on 29 Jul 2021

The Climbers by Keith Gray

Fifteen year-old ‘Sully’ Sullivan is the fastest, most daring and most successful tree-climber in his village – and he knows it. He’s obsessed with retaining his status as the best and, to be honest, this is beginning to try the patience of even his very closest friends who are starting to think there’s more to life than tree climbing.

But Sully doesn’t see the world that way. He’s already conquered four of the five biggest trees on his patch and harbours a deep desire to be the first to climb the last one. This tree has no name because the convention demands that the first person who gets to climb it also gets to give it a name. Sully’s already got his name ready – Sullivan’s Skystabber – and he’s fixated on achieving his goal.

But Sully’s life is about to get a whole lot more complicated – and deadly dangerous. There’s a new kid in town who calls himself ‘Nottingham’ and he’s claiming the crown as the best and most audacious climber. Sully immediately hates him.

The two boys are destined to go head to head to establish just who is the best and along the way Sully has to discover some hard-to-handle truths about himself and the way his friends see him.

Inevitably, the ultimate showdown comes when the two boys decide their enmity can only be resolved in the direct head to head attempt to scale the unclimbed tree and give it a name. Will the tree be Sullivan’s Skystabber or King Big and Tall as Nottingham wants it to be?

Or maybe it’s not going to be as easy as that – perhaps the tree has something to say about it all? Either way, this is a perilous, even life-threatening, quest that forces both boys to confront the enormity of what they are doing and just where their poisonous macho posturing leads them.

I’m clearly not going to tell you how the confrontation plays out because you’ll want to read that for yourself. Keith Gray has produced a story full of thrills and tension that also digs deeply into the maelstrom of teenage emotions and the search for status and identity.

This is another excellent offering from the ever reliable and excellent publisher, Barrington Stoke and comes in their ‘super readable’ series for reluctant readers. You should be able to order this from your local independent bookshop or go directly to the publishers website to get your copy.

 

Terry Potter

July 2021