Spark

Spark, Sarah Beth Durst’s 2019 middle grade fantasy, is a coming-of-age novel about a shy young girl finding her voice. It follows Mina, the quietest member of her large family, who unexpectedly bonds with a lightning beast named Pixit. She embarks on training to become one of the storm guardians, who work alongside storm beasts to control the weather in her country of Alorria. As she gains confidence in her bond with Pixit, Mina uncovers unsettling truths about the hidden costs of her country’s prosperity.

This guide refers to the 2019 Clarion Books print edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain discussions of death.

Plot Summary

Mina, the novel’s quiet 12-year-old protagonist, has spent two years nurturing her storm beast’s egg. This task is an honor bestowed on only some of Alorria’s youth. The nation’s perfect climate depends on the close bond between beasts and their guardians, each ascribed to an element of weather: wind, sun, rain, snow, or lightning. For three years after the beasts hatch, their guardians learn to manipulate their element to better the climate, commerce, and quality of life in Alorria. When Mina’s egg hatches, a lightning beast named Pixit emerges. Despite their intimate bond—exemplified in their ability to share thoughts and emotions without uttering a word—Mina’s family is distraught. Lightning guardians, who are typically loud and impulsive, harvest lightning from storm clouds to generate electricity. Mina’s family believes that her quiet temperament makes her ill-suited to pair with a lightning beast.

However, Mina and Pixit are summoned to begin training at Mytris Lightning School, located in the barren lands. Ecstatic, the pair sails to the school on a river ship. On their journey, they are joined by another guardian in training, Jyx, and her beast, Chauda. Although Jyx differs from Mina with her boisterous personality and uninhibited spontaneity, they become friends. When they arrive, it is so dark that all they see are bright lights dashing across the sky as Mytris students participate in lightning relays. Once at school, the girls meet the headmistress, Professor Werrin, and learn that they will be roommates and training partners. As they get a tour of the school, Mina worries about fitting in. The next morning Jyx and Mina meet Professor Dano, their instructor. He tells them they will not fly or create sparks yet, though they will study Alorrian history. While Jyx is frustrated, Mina is secretly delighted. In their first lesson, Dano narrates history as if it were a story, and he emphasizes that weather everywhere is connected. Mina wants to enquire about those who live outside of Alorria, but she does not.

When Pixit and Chauda are fully grown, the girls can begin flying lessons. However, Dano only allows them to walk on their beasts. While Jyx complains, Mina shows that she and Pixit are ready to fly by taking off with Pixit. Afterward, Werrin punishes her by assigning an essay, but Dano isn’t upset. He escorts her to his private library and gives her access to journals written by the original storm guardians. Mina reads about how they discovered that when they controlled the weather in one place, it caused problems elsewhere.

The next day, the girls begin flying lessons with two other students—Ferro and Zek—and a different teacher, Vira, who is a practicing lightning guardian. The students are required to summon sparks from their beasts. Mina is the only one who fails, so she cannot fly and begins to doubt herself. With Pixit’s encouragement, she decides to do things differently. So, the next day, despite not creating sparks, she joins the others in the air. There, they participate in a lightning relay where teams must catch and throw lightning bolts at rods to score points. Although Mina cannot do this, she devises a clever plan to prevent Zek and Ferro from scoring.

Soon, students must fly into a thunderstorm to harvest lightning. Losing control, Mina and Pixit fall onto the mountain range at the edge of Alorria. Jyx and Chauda follow to discover that they landed on the wrong side of the border, which is a punishable offense. Because Pixit is injured, Jyx and Chauda return to get help. The storm intensifies, and Mina and Pixit are rescued by “outsiders,” non-Alorrians from an outpost called Dern. Three rescuers—Neela, Varli, and Eione—tend to Mina’s and Pixit’s injuries and reveal that Alorria’s weather manipulation creates terrible storms beyond the border, especially every 10 years. Then, they escort Mina and Pixit to the border.

Soon, Jyx, Ferro, and Zek arrive to take Mina and Pixit back to Mytris where no one knows that they fell outside of Alorria. Students learn that they will visit the capital to observe preparations for the Ten-Year Festival celebrating the nation’s prosperity. While there, Mina meets the prime minister and asks her about the connection between the festival and the storms beyond the border. In response, guards whisk her away. Mina is rescued by Pixit and Professor Dano, who concocts a story to send her home for a week to avoid punishment.

At home, with Pixit’s encouragement, Mina tells her family everything. Her family has mixed reactions to this news, and, ultimately, her parents beg her to not get into trouble when she returns to school. However, Mina vows not to stay silent. Back at Mytris, she shares her secret with Jyx, Ferro, and Zek. Then, with Professor Dano’s help, they visit the outpost. Once there, Neela and the others describe the storms and show them the gravestones of those who perished in them. Later, Mina draws the gravestones, writes what they learned, and includes a call to action to stop the festival. She turns this into a flyer that she and her friends sneak into other students’ textbooks. Soon, the news travels among the students.

When Professor Werrin announces student participation in the festival, one girl speaks out in protest. Fights ensue in the school between the students who are opposed to attend the Ten-Year Festival and those who aren’t. Mina and her friends decide to distribute flyers to real lightning guardians during the next thunderstorm. After they do this, however, the festival is advanced to the following day. To control rumors about the storms, the prime minister bans Mytris students from attending. So, Mina gathers a group of students to evacuate “the outsiders” and save them from the storms. Once they reach safety, she takes the evacuees to the capital so they can share how difficult their life is beyond the border. When the festival crowd erupts into chaos after their speech, Mina’s group slips away to the outpost, where the storm has dissipated. Back at Mytris, no one knows who the agitators at the festival were. Soon, news arrives that the festival is suspended, investigations into the rumors have begun, and aid has been sent to non-Alorrians.

When Mina and her friends graduate, they receive their first assignments as lightning guardians. Mina, Pixit, Jyx, and Chauda are assigned to work beyond the mountains and help the non-Alorrians, proving that they helped create positive change.