The Survival Squad

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

By what standards should a book written by a Grade 10 student be judged?
If The Survival Squad were simply a class project for internal school
consumption, Priddle, who began it in 1987 while still in junior high,
would have to get high marks for perseverance and imagination. However,
in being published and marketed by a trade house, The Survival Squad
invites the critical scrutiny applied to all commercial works—and,
when normal literary standards are applied, the book proves severely
wanting in a number of areas.

Set in Priddle’s home province of Newfoundland, The Survival Squad
chronicles some two and a half years in the lives of four older teens
who have survived a global thermonuclear war that began in 1997. The
plot of this slow-starting science fiction novel depends much too
heavily on chance. For example, whenever the two couples require
something for their survival, they conveniently “find” it—as when
they discover a hidden compartment filled with fruit and vegetable
seeds. The repetitive plot also seems rather directionless; the
protagonists participate in few ongoing life-sustaining activities other
than a series of bloody, often fatal, battles with “enemies.” And
the character sketches offered for the quartet illustrate Priddle’s
too-frequent habit of “telling” rather than “showing.”

Priddle’s writing does exhibit potential, especially in the action
scenes, and, with much tighter editorial control, the final product
could have been significantly better. Libraries seeking teen-appropriate
titles dealing with The Survival Squad’s theme are directed to
Godfrey’s The Last War or Pausewang’s The Last Children of
Schevenborn.