Switchers (novel)
Switchers is the first book of the Switchers Trilogy by Kate Thompson. Originally published in Ireland in 1994, it was first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head in 1997. It introduces Tess and Kevin, the two main characters of the series. The story begins in Dublin, although most of the book is set in the Arctic circle.
The first book by this award-winning writer, it was described as "unmissable" and "spellbinding" by the Sunday Telegraph while in the Guardian it was called "one of the best books of the year". It was shortlisted for the Smarties Book Award in 1998.
Plot
Plot introduction
Two young Irish shapeshifters (or Switchers) face the menace of an encroaching Ice Age caused by monstrous creatures in the Arctic.
Synopsis
Having recently moved to Dublin, Tess finds solitude in her power to Switch (shapeshift), escaping city life in favour of the animal world. However, she is troubled by a boy named Kevin, who constantly follows her home when she gets off the school bus, and claims to need her help. He soon reveals that he is also a Switcher, and that he has joined her on several of her recent excursion as an animal. However, Kevin is almost fifteen years of age, and once a Switcher turns fifteen, they lose their powers (something of which Tess was not aware). After much prodding, Tess agrees to follow Kevin to a house owned by an elderly former Switcher named Lizzie, who reveals that enormous, ice-dwelling Arctic slugs called krools have been roused from a millennia-long slumber by recent oil drilling in the area of their hibernation. Now that they are wakeful, they have begun to lower the temperature of the Earth so as to make it more comfortable for themselves, and will not stop until they have brought the entire planet into a new Ice Age. Only Tess and Kevin have the power to stop this.