The Switch by Roland Smith

Book Description

On the morning of Henry Ludd’s thirteenth birthday, the power goes out. No phones, no news, and planes literally fall out of the sky. Henry’s father was away from the family farm, and he has not returned. It’s worrisome as people descend into lawlessness.

Four months later, the electricity still hasn’t come back. While Henry’s family is protected in their walled compound with wind turbines fueling their electricity, the rest of their area has suffered. Henry’s father still hasn’t been found. Determined to find him, Henry ventures out with a trading crew to the zoo where his dad was last seen. After the truck is hijacked and Henry is left behind, he’s forced to travel alone through the unruly world of the Switch. 

Review

Roland Smith’s The Switch brings the post-apocalypse to a place I know well—the Pacific Northwest. Set in the Portland metropolitan area, it imagines a world transformed by catastrophe. Yet this novel refuses to mire itself in despair. Instead, it’s a story of ingenuity, resilience, and the surprising ways life continues.

Like Sloley’s The Island of Last Things, a zoo sits at the heart of The Switch. I loved this. Animals, often overlooked in disaster narratives, are central here, not just as background but as symbols of survival.

That humans and animals might weather societal collapse together struck me deeply.

People often criticize zoos for condemning animals to captivity, but in post-apocalyptic fiction they take on new meaning: they become arks.

Survival, Community, and Zoos

Reading this so soon after The Island of Last Things created a fascinating echo. Two different authors, two different audiences, and two different landscapes. Yet both novels are centered on zoos, hope, and the endurance of life.

For me, the resonance deepened further: my own novel Ink and Waves takes place largely in the Puget Sound area, close enough to Portland that I could picture Smith’s settings while revisiting my own. Even better, the cast of The Switch also includes an Australian Cattle Dog (aka blue heeler)!

What I loved most about The Switch was its sense of possibility. Even when structures collapse, people adapt. Communities reform. Life carries on. It’s a message I think we desperately need in a genre that too often dwells only on ruin.

While Smith wrote this book for a middle-grade audience, I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you’re seeking a post-apocalyptic book that inspires as much as it unsettles, I recommend The Switch. And if you’d like to see how these themes connect, make sure you also check out my review of The Island of Last Things.

Content Warning

Air disaster, Animal death, Captivity, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Profanity (mild), Trafficking, Violence

The header photo is a composite image. Base image by Harshit Suryawanshi on Unsplash