Rex Zero and the End of the World

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Rex Zero’s large, nomadic family has just made a summertime move to
Ottawa from Vancouver, and Rex, almost 11, must again make new friends.
Among the first individuals he encounters in a local park is an elderly,
apparently homeless man, who is carrying a sign that says the world will
end on October 23.

Rex’s surname is not actually “Zero,” but he is playfully given
that appellation by two local lads, James Stewart and Kevin “Buster”
Keaton. Completing Rex’s new friendship circle is Kathy Brown, who
believes that Tronido, a panther that escaped from a zoo near Montreal
two years before, is living in the park’s woods. To convince skeptical
adults, Kathy wants to photograph Tronido.

What begins as an adventure becomes a mystery, one that Rex ultimately
assumes the lead in solving as he figures out the nocturnal creature’s
actual identity. The children’s immediate activities are overlaid on
happenings of the world stage, including Canadians building backyard
bomb shelters and the federal government building the Diefenbunker. The
book concludes on October 23; though not stated explicitly in either the
text or in Wynne-Jones’s afterword, that date marked a critical
turning point in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wynne-Jones’s superb prose
is dotted with delightful tidbits of humour and numerous period details.
Recommended.