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Blue Book of Nebo (The) by Manon Steffan Ros

Title: Blue Book of Nebo (The)

Author: Manon Steffan Ros

Translator: Manon Steffan Ros

Illustrator:

Publisher: Firefly Press

Date Published: 2022

Format: Paperback

Genre:

Book Category: Fiction

Age Range: 12+

Original Title: First written in Welsh

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Blue Book of Nebo (The)

by Manon Steffan Ros
Age Range: 12+

The Blue Book of Nebo , a multi-award-winning YA novel by Welsh author Manon Steffan Ros, who translated it into English, is a chillingly honest story about a global catastrophe particularly apt for today’s world.

Dylan, who shares the narration with his mother, Rowenna, was only six when ‘The End’ came in 2018. The electricity went off for good, and the 21st-century world as he knew it completely disappeared. Somehow, he and his mum survived in their isolated hilltop house above the village of Nebo in north-west Wales. Dylan is now fourteen; he’s had to grow up quickly and learn how to live in their new ‘normal’ existence by developing different skills and returning to the old ways of living. Despite the close relationship between mother and son, it changes subtly over time as Dylan takes on adult responsibilities and each has their own secrets, thoughts and memories which are written down in a notebook – ‘The Blue Book of Nebo’.

This is a story of survival against all the odds and whilst it is a harsh existence, Dylan and Rowenna show great resilience as they strive to exist in a post-apocalyptic world. Through all the bleakness there are uplifting and heart-warming moments. Steffan Ros demonstrates not only the importance of the physical survival of Dylan and Rowenna but also of the Welsh language, books and learning (Rowenna taking as many books as she can from a now-abandoned library) and their cultural heritage.

While not dwelling on what caused ‘The End’ itself there are clear references to a nuclear event with the mushroom cloud that appeared, radiation sickness and contamination of the land and every living thing.

Although, in many ways, an unsettling novella, and reminiscent in some ways of German author Gudrun Pausewang’s Fall-Out (Die Wolke) , written in 1987 about a large-scale nuclear accident disaster – a much more harrowing and challenging read – The Blue Book of Nebo concentrates more on the strong emotional bond between mother and son, their tenacity and determination to survive together with a zest for life despite the overwhelming obstacles they face.

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