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, Kûn 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.

Other titles in The Elements series:
Wild is the Wind
The Rhythm of the Rain
The Ever-Changing Earth

A young boy sits up in bed and gazes at the distant Moon through his window. He wonders if, one day, a human will stand on its surface and look back at the Earth. But Earth is already being studied from the Moon. An all-seeing Moon rock of almost impossible age, called Bok, has been looking down at our blue and green planet for millennia.

Geologists – people who study rocks – have a saying: ‘Rocks remember’. During his time, Bok has witnessed some truly wondrous things. Created in the Earth-shattering collision 4.5 billion years ago that led to the formation of the Moon, he has seen stars burst into being and meteors streak through the solar system. He has seen his own Moon surface be transformed with craters, and he has watched a fiery, volcanic planet transform into the haven we know today – as mountain ranges rose up, oceans appeared and dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

And he found himself rudely awoken one early lunar morning by a strange creature picking him up and throwing him into a box.

That is how Bok and Neil Armstrong first met, and this is their (true) story.