Dear Flame

Fifteen-year-old friends Harry, Graham, and Wallace went on a hike during the height of the dry season and, due to thoughtlessness and negligence, or rather – out of stupidity, caused a massive forest fire in a remote area of Australia.... And they ran away, scared.
While the alarming news had not yet struck the people, the author shows each house, every family in turn. The Buckinghams, the Fairhalls, the Georgies… Each is closed in their own home, fixated on their plot or farm. Everyone has their own concerns and their usual fenced-in little world. Old man George grumbles: "If there’s a fire somewhere, let others put it out. We have enough of our own troubles." And Buckingham reassures his wife: "It’s not burning on our plot. And not on our street. If it’s burning – if it’s even still burning – it’s far enough away that we really don’t care if there’s a fire or not".
But the fire sweeps away all fences and partitions. There is no separate house, no separate fate. You can’t watch your neighbor’s house burn and save yourself. Now everyone is connected to each other.
At first, people thought that the fire would bypass the village of Topoli, and therefore the adult men and women hurried to help the residents of the nearby towns and farms. Only the elderly and children remained in Topoli (Lorna – 14, Peter and Stella – 13, Stevie – 9, and little Julie is only 5 years old).
And then the unforeseen happened: the fire approached closely to Topoli.
An incredible number of events occur in a matter of hours. The fire is described in such a way that it sends shivers down your spine… But little would be worth its description if not for the characters. Faced with the elements, they manifest themselves differently in the most terrifying moments of their lives, and each finds the strength, overcomes fear, and performs their small feat: they rush to help those who are nearby and in need of support or even rescue.
The chronicle of the children’s survival keeps the reader in suspense from the first to the last page, and in front of the reader, the heroes grow up rapidly and mature. This is a very smart and useful book. It will be read with keen interest not only by teenagers aged 12-15 but also by adult readers, lovers of disaster novels.