Ted Ryan has been raised by an idealistic father whose socialist beliefs have drawn him into labour protests. In his zeal to change the world, Will Ryan is often an unreliable father who, for example, abandons Ted by the road to hitchhike home alone when he decides to join the 1935 march on Ottawa. So it’s no surprise, when the family is touring France in 1936, that Will leaves his wife and son in Perpignan while he rushes off to see the beginnings of what will become the Spanish Civil War. Unfortunately the unrest spreads, and when his mother is injured in a street fray, 15-year-old Ted has to travel through the turbulent Spanish countryside to find his father.

John Wilson, author of the Weet trilogy about dinosaurs, has set up a believable situation to get his protagonist into the turmoil of 1936 Spain. Once on his way, Ted travels with Dolores, daughter of the leader of a rebel faction, who provides background information. The reasons for the Spanish Civil War are complex, however, and Dolores’s explanations tend to be long, didactic, and action-stopping.

Recreating a time and place should also include being true to the language of the era. It is jarring, in a story set in 1936, to hear that Ted’s father is not emotionally “available to Ted” or to hear Ted telling himself to “remain focused.” Although the unfolding events of the story are intrinsically interesting, the characters are wooden. Too often the reader is simply told how Ted is feeling or what he is thinking. This tends to distance readers emotionally, leaving them uninvolved and, ultimately, untouched by what should have been a fascinating read.