As the town of Harmony, New Hampshire, watched the aurora borealis, a solar flare caused the power to go out everywhere. Charlie Cobb's first-person narration makes the global disaster personal; unadorned prose carries readers along on his mission to find diabetes medicine for his mom. Though Charlie's world may lack energy, the book's plot doesn't, and readers will enjoy the ride.

The sky brightened with a brief but intense flare of light, and immediately everything in the world changed. All electrical charges went dead, and the rhythms of Charlie's life in his hometown of Harmony, New Hampshire, are immediately replaced by a terrifying new normal. Mr. Kingman, the school janitor and town's sole volunteer police officer, is forced to confront one of the town's fringe residents, Mr. Bragg, an antigovernment extremist whose self-interest policies lead to growing violence. When Charlie discovers that his diabetic mother has just 19 days of medicine remaining, he leaves the relative safety of Harmony to walk 50 miles to the hospital in Concord. Philbrick is in his element with this kid-oriented view of global catastrophe. Charlie's world is brimming with danger, yet he single-mindedly accepts his mission to save his mother, since, for him, the threat of wild animals is overshadowed by the menace of frightened human beings. With a fast pace, pulse-pounding premise, and approachable first-person narration, this would be a great pick for reluctant readers.