Where the World Ends

Author: Geraldine McCaughrean Publisher: Usborne ISBN: 9781474921145

IT WAS a routine job for the group of three men and nine young boys from Hirta, an island in the St Kilda archipelago in Scotland: to be put ashore on a remote sea stack (a vertical column of rock formed by wind erosion) to harvest birds for food.

They say that every time a lad goes fowling on the St Kilda Stacks, he comes home less of a boy and more of a man.

It’s a dangerous job, but somebody’s got to do it. It’s just routine.

During the summer of 1727, after the group has done their job, nobody turns up to collect them.

It’s anybody’s guess why, and boys being boys, nothing but the end of the world will explain it.

Stranded (or abandoned?), to endure horrendous storms, starvation and terror, they struggle to survive, dreaming of the day when rescue – be it in the form of a ship from Hirta, or angels to take them to heaven – would finally arrive.

Based on a true story set in St Kilda, Where the World Ends is an amazing tale of resilience and survival that is both inspiring and brilliant. It is unbelievable one minute, and heartwrenching the next.

Tragic, yet amusing enough at times to make you laugh out loud, this book is an absolute delight to read.