The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose

The Burning Season pits a 12-year-old girl against a fast-moving forest fire.

The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose. Nancy Paulsen Books, 2025. 228 pages.

• Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12
• Recommended For: ages 10-15

I’ve been raised/ on this mountain/ for one simple task.
This is the day I begin.

Opal Halloway was born on Wolf Mountain in the Gila National Forest—fittingly, at the beginning of fire season. For four generations, her family has manned the watchtower from April through August and beyond, scanning the view daily for signs of smoke. Aside from wintertime sojourns in the nearest town, this is the only life Opal has ever known, shared by her mother and grandmother. On her twelfth birthday, after the cake and presents, she begins her formal training with Gran. It’s assumed she’ll carry on the family tradition. But will she?

Opal loves her family, the New Mexico mountains, the forest and the fire tower, but she also longs for a normal life with school and friends. And beyond that, there’s a secret she’s keeping to herself: Since the Wolf Mountain Fire three years before, when she and her family had to be evacuated by helicopter in the nick of time, she’s been terrified of fire. Anyone would be, but Opal also lost her firefighter father to the flames when she was too young to know him. This work is obviously in her family bloodstream, but does she have what it takes to carry it on? She won’t know for sure until the inevitable test comes. 

Even readers who assume a happy ending will be turning pages feverishly while all of Opal’s support structure is ripped away and she has to make some agonizing choices by herself. She meets the challenge in ways that seem outside the ability of a twelve-year-old, but the verse-narrative form of the novel (which is very much stream-of-consciousness at the climax) makes her determination believable. I’ll admit, though, I felt like yelling at the characters sometimes: No—don’t run off in the woods! Stay put! (But if they had listened to me, no story.)

The author’s extensive research shows in the details of a lookout’s work and daily life, but even more in respect for nature. Fire has a place in our world, both creative and destructive, and sometimes both at once. “Our God is a consuming fire” should acquire more meaning after reading The Burning Season.

Considerations: none

Bottom Line: Reflective, thoughtful, and thrilling.

Related Reading From Redeemed Reader

• Reviews: Other books we’ve reviewed by Caroline Starr Rose are May B., Blue Birds, and Jasper and the Riddle of Riley’s Mine. We’ve also interviewed her.
• Reviews: For more novels of teens pushed to their limits, check out If We Survive, Terror at Bottle Creek, Wildfire, and Across the Desert.
• Reflection: Opal is a fan of Gary Paulsen. Go here for our thoughts about his breakout novel, Hatchet.

We are participants in the Amazon LLC affiliate program; purchases you make through affiliate links like the one below may earn us a commission. Read more here.

You may purchase The Burning Season on Amazon