The Flickering Fires

Gabi's Review 

Templar books bring us Grahame Baker-Smith’s The Flickering Fires as part of its Elements series. The book is a historical and scientific explanation of how humans harnessed the transformative power of fire and went on to shape our societies. It is also a fabulously engaging read! Introducing young minds to the story of humankind’s technological evolution – one that’s as majestic and fantastical as any fictional story - seems like a wonderful idea to me. The book also contains evocative illustrations that capture the power and dynamism of nature and the marvels of human ingenuity.

The book opens in the icy northern island of Solveig, a place of myths, frost giants and trolls. We learn that despite the island’s perennial and extreme winter, it was conceived by the volatility of volcanic fire. Initially fire offered cooking, protection and warmth, and then its use progressed to become foundational in our technologies of metallurgy. Baker-Smith’s book demonstrates how fire transformed the carboniferous era into the seams of coal that powered the industrial revolution, which in turn delivered all the devices we depend on today.

As if this wasn't enough awe and wonder to introduce to a 5-year-old: the book poses the question of where the materials for these inventions originated. Yes, you guessed it, fire; more precisely the fusion reactors that are stars. As the author writes: “The oxygen you breathe is the dying breath of a star; the calcium in your bones, the iron in your blood, even the magnesium in your DNA is made in the heart of a star.”  I would have found an explanation our interconnectedness to all creation quite a comfort at an early age; perhaps today’s five-year-olds will too.  This is a magical book that presents its information in a most compelling way.

Publisher's Review 

Solvieg lives in a land of glaciers and frozen waterfalls, the home of frost giants and trolls. Yet it is a world with a fiery heart, created from the ashes of dead stars, heat buried deep within...

The Flickering Fires takes us on a journey from the first sparks of creation to the harnessing of fire for cooking, protection and warmth. As we journey through millennia, we see its powerful force through the Copper Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age through to the present day. From tools to tablets, the steam engine to rockets - fire at the heart of it all.

The final book in the award-winning The Elements series sees Issac, Cassi, Kn and Solveig reunite around a fire of flickering flames. Creatures of fire, earth, air and water, connected in ways that are as deep and old as the stars.